Step Forward
by ndj35
Summary: Sasha, Rachel, Kat and Nina (OC) travel to the west coast to investigate rumours of an Immune resurgence, while Tom, Mike and Tex are left holding the fort (and the babies) at home in St Louis. Action, adventure and kickass women in the latest 'Step' story. NOW COMPLETE.
1. Bring It On

_Author's note: When I published the last story in the Step universe (Step Fourth), I really really thought that was the end for a while. I have a lot going on at the moment, season 4 is coming up, there are other stories I want to write for other shows… But then Sasha and co tapped me on the shoulder repeatedly with a story idea, and eventually it got too loud for me to ignore._

 _So I'm not sure how many chapters this will end up being, or how often I'll be able to update, but here you go, the first chapter of Step Forward. Rated T for now, but I may succumb to my love of smut later on and upgrade to an M._

 _This story is a bit of a different direction, so more than ever I would really appreciate a review to let me know if you're on board!_

 **Chapter 1 – Bring it on**

Sasha Chandler ended the call and set her cellphone on the kitchen table, her forehead still creased into a frown. She stared down at the notes she had begun scribbling five minutes into the conversation, once it became clear that Second Lieutenant Kathleen Nolan of the US Marine Corps - aka Tex Nolan's daughter Kat - wasn't just calling for a friendly chat.

Sighing, Sasha picked up her phone again, scrolling through her contacts and vacillating between two different options: her boss at the National Intelligence Service, and her close friend – and more importantly, eminent scientist - Rachel Slattery. Then she had a brainwave and chose a different number entirely.

"Sash!" At her home a couple of miles away, Nina Callaghan answered the phone on its first ring, hoisting her two year old son over the table and into her husband's arms as she did so. "How are you?"

"Can you talk?" Sasha sounded worried, and Nina sat down at the table, making a face in response to her husband Tex's puzzled look.

"Sure. What's going on?"

"You still talk to a lot of other journalists, right?"

"Well, the ones that are left. But people, sources... yeah. Why?" Instinctively, Nina pulled a pen and a piece of kitchen towel towards her.

"Have you heard anything about an Immune resurgence on the West Coast?"

When Admiral Tom Chandler got home, his two elder children in tow, he found his wife feeding chocolate pudding to their infant twins, Amelia and Jed, while simultaneously scribbling on a pad and talking on the phone.

"They're claiming the cure is no longer effective-" Sasha stopped abruptly and he could hear the raised voice of the person she was speaking to, though he couldn't make out the words. "Yes, I know that, Rachel," Sasha continued, "I'm saying it's what they're claiming, not-" She looked up and saw Tom watching her, and she smiled. "Tom and the kids are home," She told Rachel, "I'll call you right back."

"What's happening?" Tom asked, as Sasha ended the call, and stood to kiss him in greeting.

"Something." She replied. "I'll tell you all about it once these two are in bed. In the meantime, can you handle bath time while I handle dinner?"

A couple of hours later, with the twins bathed and put to bed - evidenced by damp patches still drying on Tom's shirt - and Ashley and Sam closeted in their rooms, Sasha sat down next to her husband on the couch and took a deep breath.

"Do you think you could cope here if I went away for a little while? Probably a fortnight at most?"

"Sure..." Tom replied slowly. "But why would that be happening?"

"There's been a resurgence of Immune activity on the West Coast. It's coming out of a small town in Southern California. I want to go and check it out, and the NIS are on board."

"Why you?" He asked, and something in his tone needled her just a little.

"Because it was flagged to me. And because I can assemble the right team. And why _not_ me?" She couldn't resist adding. "The twins are a year old now, and maybe I could do with something outside of this house!" The words were out of her mouth before she'd had time to think, and she watched Tom react.

"You feel like that?" He asked quietly.

She swallowed before nodding. "Yes, I do. I love being a mom, and I love our family and our home, I do." She paused as she tried to make sense of it out loud in a way that Tom would understand. "But I love being out there too, and I think it's time I tried to find that balance. Sifting intelligence from our couch is never going to be enough for me." She held her breath as she waited for his response.

"Sash..." His eyes softened and he reached out to pull her into his arms, "I love that side of you. I'm sorry, I guess I thought you were happy here."

"I am happy! I just need... more." She couldn't help laughing a little at how that sounded, and Tom let out a chuckle.

"That's my wife, always wanting more." He kissed her. "Of course I'll handle things here. You go do your thing. You'll have a team with you, right?"

"Absolutely." Sasha replied, sinking into Tom's embrace as the kiss deepened. She decided to wait a while before expanding on exactly who that team consisted of.

The next morning, Sasha drove into the city to meet her team in the coffee shop in central St Louis that they'd been frequenting since first settling in the city after the apocalypse. When she arrived, Nina Callaghan was already there, alongside her step daughter Kat, who had swapped her service uniform for jeans and a leather jacket.

"Undercover, huh?" Sasha greeted her.

"That was the condition of me being allowed to do this. No overt military presence, right?"

"Right." Sasha nodded, noting out of the corner of her eye how proud Nina looked. "Tex okay about you both doing this?"

"Are you kidding?" Nina replied, "He's just pissed off that he wasn't invited."

Kat laughed. "That's not completely true. But he's made me promise to protect Nina and-" She broke off abruptly and winced, and it was only Rachel's arrival that prevented Sasha exploring that further.

"Hi!" Rachel Slattery (nee Scott) seemed oblivious to the stares that she automatically got whenever she went out in public, but as she hugged them all in greeting, at least a dozen pairs of eyes were on her. Sasha noted with satisfaction that Kat was subtly scanning them, just as she herself was, to ensure there was no threat. It might have been three years since Danny Green and Carlton Burk had foiled the attempt on Rachel's life, but no one had forgotten it.

Once they were settled with coffee, Sasha outlined her plan.

"As Kat and Nina both have contacts in the town, we go in low key and start gathering intel, see where it leads. This is purely an intelligence mission, not any kind of action or takedown. We need to establish facts on the ground and pass those back to NIS and Military HQ, who will decide on a suitable strategy to neutralise the threat. Rachel, you'll be our scientific adviser. Everything we get on their claims about the virus and the cure, we'll pass back to you for vetting. It may be that we're asked to start a subtle whispering campaign to counter their claims with facts, so you'll be vital in helping us to do that." Sasha paused as she saw Rachel looked puzzled.

"You're talking as though I won't be there with you?" The scientist asked.

"Well, yes." Sasha quickly glanced at Kat and Nina. "You'll be here, we'll send the information back via a secure-"

But Rachel was already shaking her head. "They're claiming new infections. I can't assess that from afar. I need to be there."

"Rach," Nina laid a hand on her arm, "You're one of the most recognisable people in the world. This is a covert operation."

"So I'll wear a hat! If you honestly think you can do this without me-"

"We can't." Sasha spoke as bluntly as she could. "But you can't be in the field."

"She could stay in the house." Kat said, "We drive in at night anyway, unlikely anyone would see. And it means Rachel can be close to the action without being identified." Kat's voice had a quiet authority that belied her age, and nods around the table signalled consensus.

"Have you told Mike yet?" Sasha asked.

Rachel shook her head, "I wanted to hear the plan first. He's going to want me flanked by six large men with guns, so I need to talk him round." She sighed.

"How about two large women with guns?" Sasha asked, unable to resist a slight smirk.

"Three." Nina corrected, and then raised an eyebrow at the looks of surprise. "Oh please, you don't think I have that in my skill set?"

It broke the tension that had accumulated, and even Rachel managed a smile as the others laughed.

"So when do we leave?" Kat asked.

"I need to write up the briefing and get it signed off, and there are a few intelligence sources I want to speak to here in St Louis, but in theory? No later than the weekend." Sasha replied.

It was Nina who said it, but all four were thinking it: "Bring it on."


	2. Revelations

_Author's note: I'm trying hard to make this story accessible to anyone who hasn't read the earlier Step stories, but if you're getting confused or want to know more, check out the guide in my profile._

 _Thanks for reading the first chapter, hope you enjoy this second one!_

 **Chapter 2 – Revelations**

"So it's not enough you're taking my wife on this insane outing, now you want to involve my daughter?" Mike Slattery glared at Sasha across his desk, and she could feel Tom's eyes on her from his desk on the opposite side of the room. The office that the CNO and Vice CNO shared at Military HQ had always been a little small for two, but now it felt positively claustrophobic.

"I want to interview her, yes." Sasha said calmly, "She spent time in an Immune camp, and she'll have valuable information that could help with this mission. I'm happy for you to be there, or anyone else Lissy would like, but I do need to speak to her." She tried not to let her voice rise as she added, "I'm bringing this to you first as a courtesy, Mike."

"Captain Slattery," Mike snapped, "Lieutenant Commander Chandler."

That stung, but Sasha maintained her calm demeanour. Mike Slattery was famously protective of his wife and family, and having lost his first wife and two of his children to the virus, she could understand why. At the same time, with an Immune threat this credible, Lissy Slattery was too valuable an intelligence asset to pass up, .

"Sir, I'm intending to contact your daughter today to fix a suitable time for an interview-"

"Tomorrow morning, at my house. You can have one hour at 09:00." Mike's tone allowed no argument, and Sasha didn't intend to offer one. Leaving with nothing but a glance at Tom out of the corner of her eye, she drove straight to the gym and kicked hell out of a punch bag for an hour to relieve her feelings.

When she arrived at the Slattery house the next morning, Sasha was unsurprised to find the whole family gathered in force. Rachel shot her an apologetic look as she ushered three year old Jamie from the room, but on the couch Mike sat firmly on one side of his eighteen year old daughter, and her boyfriend Aaron sat on the other. Flanked by two large men in uniform, Lissy looked small, but Sasha knew the pretty brunette had a force of personality not far off her father's.

"I'm sorry about this, Sasha." Lissy said, "But some people won't listen to reason." She gave her father a look, but he paid no attention, his expression impassive. "What would you like to know?" She asked.

Sasha set a dictaphone on the coffee table and sat down opposite the couch. "We're going into a town where the Immunes have established a substantial presence. We don't know yet how that happened, but anything you can tell us about how their camp and activities were organised when you were with them in Virginia would be helpful."

"They infiltrated a small town." Lissy replied. "By the time I got there, it basically belonged to them." She shot a quick glance at Aaron. "You know I wasn't there very long. It was kind of frightening. Aaron probably knows more than I do, he was involved in, well, resistance I guess."

"I've read your report." Sasha acknowledged to Aaron. "And what your group did to counter their activities and extract vulnerable people, it was extraordinary. But from what I understand, you were never inside the meetings, or the compound?"

"No, ma'am." Aaron agreed. "We were mixed in with the people in the town. Immune leaders said they were protecting them – they figured at that point that anyone still alive must be immune. They preached some of their sermons, but mainly they forced people into training for a fight."

"What happened to people who became sick?" Sasha asked. "There must have been some. Or people who arrived at the town already infected?"

"They died." Aaron said bluntly. "And the Immunes wanted everyone to rejoice."

"It was more than that." Lissy said quietly, "They thought we were the chosen people. Every time someone died and we didn't, it was more proof of that. They took passages from the Bible, Revelations mainly, twisted it to sound like the apocalypse had a purpose…" She broke off for a second. "They used other parts of the Bible too, to excuse-" This time it was Mike she glanced towards, "-things."

Sasha had been in enough situations like this to know when to back off and when to press, but as a former detective, so had Mike Slattery.

"Lissy?" Mike asked, "What things?" His voice was softer than Sasha had expected, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Rachel come to stand in the doorway.

"Dad, I don't think…" She swallowed and reached for Aaron's hand. "I really don't want you to hear some of this."

Sasha sat silently as Mike reached for his daughter's other hand. "It's okay, baby." He said, in the gentlest voice Sasha had ever heard him use. She had a sudden flashback to the first real conversation she and Rachel had ever had. ' _People don't understand it, Mike and I. But that's because some people mistake how we present ourselves on the outside for who we are on the inside.'_ It had resonated then for its relevance to her own situation with Tom, but now she suddenly understood it in the context of Rachel's relationship.

Lissy slowly started speaking again, "They talked about a return to simpler times. Not just the lack of technology and all of that, but the way communities work. Women were definitely lower value than men." She paused and took a deep breath. "They were arranging marriages, to breed more of the chosen people. Women weren't given a choice."

Mike looked as though he might throw up, and Lissy's knuckles were white where she was gripping both her boyfriend and her father's hands.

"Did they-" Mike started, but Lissy shook her head violently.

"No, no, not me. I got out before- But I saw things, I can't-" She let out a single sob, then straightened herself and took a deep breath. "Dad, I love you, but I really don't want to talk about this in front of you. Please. Aaron can stay with me, and you can read the report when Sasha's done, but please will you leave us to it?"

From the doorway, Rachel watched the emotions play over her husband's face. She knew he had never forgiven himself for what had happened to Lissy during the outbreak – the fact that she had watched her mother and siblings die, as much as the fact that she'd been caught up with the immunes – and his painstaking journey to build a relationship with her again had been so difficult to watch. Now she willed him to make the right decision.

"Of course." Mike said quietly, kissing his daughter's head as he stood to leave the room. "Sasha," He said in his normal tone, directing his attention to her for a moment, "Please handle this sensitively. I'll expect to see that reflected in your report."

As Mike left the room, Rachel followed him into the kitchen, relieved in a way to be spared listening to more of Lissy's revelations herself. The thought of a fifteen year old going through something like that made her heart ache.

She closed the kitchen door behind them, and was half surprised when Mike immediately wrapped his arms around her.

"I thought you were still angry with me," She murmured as she snuggled into his embrace.

He shook his head. "Not any more. Not if you can stop… that… happening to someone else's kid."

"Sasha can." Rachel replied, "And Nina and Kat and I, we're going to help."

"And you're staying in the house." It wasn't a question.

"I'm staying in the house." She repeated. Tipping her head back to look up at him, their eyes met. "I love you." She told him.

"I love you, sweetheart." He sighed. "Too much, maybe."

"No such thing." Rachel reassured him, sinking back into his arms. "No such thing."


	3. Goodbyes

_Author's note: This is a little interlude, really, before our mission gets going. I'm maintaining a T rating, because I don't think this crosses the line, but if you disagree then let me know. I increasingly suspect we'll get to M territory proper later down the line…!_

 _Thank you for reading, reviewing, following and favouriting._

 **Chapter 3 - Goodbyes**

Tex placed his hands carefully on Nina's waist, steadying her as she leaned back into him, grinding her hips just a little.

"Whoa lady, none of that."

Nina laughed as she raised the revolver and squeezed off three rounds, hitting two of the six tin cans that Tex had arranged on the broken wall that circled their back yard.

"Focus!" She snapped at herself, taking out a third can with her next shot, the last two hitting home as well.

"You haven't lost it, darlin'." Tex reassured her. "I'm only doing this because I like feeling you up." He slid his hands upwards from her waist, as she laughed.

"Sounds good to me." She turned in his embrace, sliding the weapon into the back of her jeans as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Kat still entertaining the little man?"

"You really shouldn't call Ray that." Tex replied, and Nina snorted with laughter.

"You know perfectly well I was referring to our son."

"Speaking of which..." Tex moved one hand to her belly. "You really should tell Sasha before you go."

"She doesn't need something else to worry about. Kat knows, that's enough."

Tex opened his mouth to disagree, but Nina stopped him with a kiss. "Kansas, you want to argue, or you want to sneak upstairs and do dirty things to me?"

He considered it for a moment, then grinned, "Sweet talker like you, Callaghan, how could I resist?"

Kat smiled to herself as she heard her father and Nina's soft footsteps ascending the stairs. "Our parents are about to get loud." She informed her two year old brother.

"Loud!" Jack agreed, banging his feet on the floor for emphasis before turning his attention back to his toy trucks.

Kat picked up her cellphone and her smile broadened further as she read the message on screen.

 _I miss you, beautiful._

 _Miss you more_ , she tapped back.

In the city, Rachel Slattery carefully closed the door of Jamie's room and went in search of her husband. Mike was staring out of the kitchen window into the backyard, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against his broad back.

"Jamie's asleep."

"Good."

"Did you talk to Lissy?"

"She's doing okay. Better today. Yesterday was rough on her."

"I know." Rachel planted a kiss between his shoulder blades through his thin t-shirt, and he turned around to hold her.

"I spoke to Aaron too. Gave them my blessing."

"You did?" Rachel looked up at him in surprise. She'd been trying to talk him round for weeks, ever since Aaron had proposed and Mike had declared them far too young to marry.

"He saved her when I couldn't, he loves her and protects her. What more could I ask for, really?"

Rachel just nodded, and Mike bent his head to kiss her.

"I really would prefer it if you took just one operator with you." He said, when they broke apart. "I can assign someone you know from the James. Burk, or Wolf?"

"Wolf and Hope are in Australia, remember?" Rachel touched his face. "And Sasha is equal to any one of your men."

"I know," Mike sighed, "But-"

She stopped him with a kiss. "It will be fine, I promise. Now are you going to take advantage of our last few hours together, or not?" She gave him a naughty smile.

"Dr Slattery!" He replied in mock outrage, before making her gasp with surprise as he lifted her into his arms. "I guess I could do that." He conceded as he bore her off towards the bedroom.

At Tom and Sasha's house, a reluctant Sam was loading the dishwasher after dinner, and Ashley was quizzing Sasha about the trip, while Tom ran upstairs to answer a squawk on the baby monitor.

"But where exactly is this town?" Ashley asked.

"I can't tell you that, Ash, and you know it." Sasha smiled at her stepdaughter, "It's in Southern California, that's enough."

"But how are you getting there? If there's no airport?"

"We're travelling with a military convoy as far as Phoenix, then they split off to Tucson and we keep going. Should take around thirty hours." Sasha felt tired just thinking about it, but she, Kat and Nina were going to split the driving and sleep in shifts. Rachel needed to stay out of sight in the back of the SUV, because Sasha didn't want anyone to see her close up, not even the members of the military that they were driving in convoy with.

"Thirty hours without stopping?!" Ash looked slightly incredulous.

"That's the plan. An occasional comfort break, that's all."

"Is it true there are bandits in New Mexico?"

Sasha's instinct was to lie, but Ash was sixteen and far from stupid. "Seems like it. Not just there, either. But that's why we're travelling with the convoy."

Tom came downstairs and joined them. "Amelia kicked off her blanket." He replied to the unasked question. "She went right back to sleep." He smiled at Sasha, "Speaking of which…"

"Ew, I know that look!" Ashley exclaimed. "I'm going to my room, to put my headphones on!"

Tom was visibly torn between censure and laughter, "Ash!"

Sam scampered past them, his newly lanky limbs appearing, as always, to not be quite under his control. "Bedroom, headphones, LOUD!" He agreed as he ran up the stairs, and Tom succumbed to laughter.

"Wait, Sam! You need to say goodbye to Sasha, remember?"

"Sorry!" Sam blushed a little as he came back to hug Sasha. "Bye, Sash."

Sasha held him tight for a second, then laughed when she went to kiss his head like she used to when he was younger, and realised he was now too tall. She reached up and ruffled his hair instead. "Bye Sammy."

Ash stepped up for her own goodbye hug as Sam went upstairs. Her relationship with Sasha had vastly improved from the early days, but it had never been as relaxed as the one her brother and stepmother enjoyed. "Be careful." She said now, as Sasha stroked a hand over her hair.

"Of course." Sasha held her for just a second longer, then released her. "Take care of your dad while I'm gone, okay?"

"Don't worry, he can even cook an egg now." Ashley smirked and followed her brother upstairs, with a rather pointed, " _Sleep_ well!"

Sasha turned to Tom, "When did they get so grown up?"

"I'm not sure." He pulled her close, "But since they already think they know what we're going to do for the next few hours, I say we go right ahead and do it."

Later, Sasha lay in Tom's arms in bed, his hands tracing slowly over her naked skin as their sweat cooled in the night air coming in through the open skylight windows.

"Tell me I'm doing the right thing," She murmured, "Going on this mission."

"Are you asking me as the CNO, or your husband?" Tom stroked her cheek and she turned her head to look at him.

"Husband." She confirmed, "I don't need convincing of the value of the mission."

"We'll be fine." He reassured her. "The kids will be fine, all of them."

"But you've never done this alone before-"

"I know." He acknowledged. "But Dad's here to help, Ash is great with the twins, and Tex is just down the road. We can always join forces. It will be fine."

"It will be fine," Sasha repeated, trying very hard to convince herself.

"Listen," Tom looked right into her eyes, "Once you're out there, it'll kick in, that focus. Trust me."

"I do," She said honestly, leaning in to kiss him, "I always have."


	4. Plus One

_Author's note: And so the mission begins! Full disclosure, I have never driven from St Louis to Southern California, so any complaints on that score, please direct to Google Maps!_

 _Thank you so much for reading, following, favouriting, and especially reviewing._

 **Chapter 4 - Plus One**

"What have you done to your hair?!"

Sasha turned from loading Kat's bag into the back of the SUV at the sound of Nina's horrified voice, to see Rachel climbing out of her car onto the Nolans' driveway, her river of dark hair replaced with a head of short, blonde curls.

"Trying to be less conspicuous!' Rachel replied defensively, as Sasha and an open mouthed Kat tried to process the transformation. Not only was the haircut so radically different, but the colour didn't suit her skin tone at all. On the plus side, she did at least look fairly unrecognisable as the famous Doctor Rachel Scott.

"Just tell me it's a wig?" Nina pleaded, starting to laugh.

"Of course it is." Mike answered for her, leaning out of the driver's side window. "You think any hairdresser would put their name to that?"

Rachel rounded on him, but then reluctantly started to laugh herself. "It works, though." She noted. "So at least I can do a fair share of the driving." She leaned down to kiss Mike, and the others looked away to give them a moment of private goodbye.

Sasha had said her own goodbye to Tom before leaving the house a little after midnight to drive the short distance to Tex and Nina's, and as she watched Rachel out of the corner of her eye, she felt a pang of guilt. Whatever she might say, she knew - they all knew - that this mission was not without risk. And as the instigator, she felt the weight of responsibility.

They drove to the rendezvous with the convoy in near silence, even Nina forgoing her usual irreverence in favour of staring out of the window quietly, her fingers unconsciously twisting her wedding ring. But by the time they'd made contact with the Staff Sergeant leading the convoy, brooding had given way to anticipation, and all four of them were feeling more upbeat.

The first couple of hours of the journey passed quickly enough as they discussed the mission ahead, but after a while Nina decided to get some sleep before her driving shift; Rachel buried herself in a stack of lab reports, using a dim torch to illuminate the pages until dawn started to light the sky; and Kat seemed to be having a lengthy message conversation on her cellphone, in preparation for soon losing signal.

After four hours, they pulled over for a quick comfort break and Nina took the wheel while Sasha slept. By the time she woke when they stopped again, the sun was high in the sky. Kat insisted on driving the next shift as Rachel hadn't slept, on condition the doctor got her head down now.

"It's too bright - and cold, given how high Nina likes the aircon." Rachel protested. "I'm fine to miss sleep, I have a child, I've barely had a full night's sleep in three years!"

"I'll get you a blanket out of the back." Nina said, "You can warm up and block out the light - and rest!"

Sasha climbed out of the SUV to stretch, finding relief in reaching her arms above her head, then dropping forward to hang from her waist, her fingers grazing the ground. Then she jumped upright, reaching instinctively for her weapon as Nina cried out.

"What the fuck?!" Her voice was furious, something Sasha had never heard before; Nina usually rolled with the punches better than anyone she'd ever met. "Get out, right now!" She continued, and Sasha strode round to the back of the vehicle, closely followed by Kat, whose gun was already in her hand. Sasha's mouth opened in shock as a figure uncurled from between two boxes, and awkwardly climbed out of the back of the SUV.

"Ashley?!"

Sasha's stepdaughter half fell as she hit the ground, her limbs clearly stiffened by at least ten hours of inactivity.

"Hi Sasha." She muttered.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sasha heard her own voice as if from far away, her brain struggling to process what her eyes were seeing.

"I wanted to come on the trip." Ash answered, staring at the ground she was sitting on as she tried to stretch the cramp out of her legs.

"It's not a trip," Sasha hissed, conscious of the convoy only fifty metres away, "It's an intelligence mission, one you've just severely compromised!"

Rachel had joined them now, her face pale beneath her wig. "Your father is going to be distraught." She said quietly.

Ashley looked up at the circle of women standing above her, and burst into tears.

At that moment, a voice came through the two way radio unit on the dashboard, the lead vehicle in the convoy querying their extended stop.

"Put her in the back." Sasha told Kat, and went to answer the call. The purpose of their trip had been left deliberately vague with the Staff Sergeant and his men, and the last thing they needed was to draw further attention to themselves.

The women climbed back into the car in silence, Ashley sandwiched in the back between Rachel and Sasha while Nina took the front seat, her face still angry as Kat pulled the SUV back onto the road and into formation as the convoy moved off.

Sasha checked her cellphone yet again, despite knowing perfectly well that there was no signal, and wouldn't be until they hit the outskirts of Phoenix. Cell coverage no longer stretched to the less densely populated areas that they were travelling through. She needed to speak to Tom, but short of relaying something back over the military comms - which didn't include a secure line - there was no means of doing so.

"Tell me you at least left your father a note?" She said, and Ash nodded slightly. As the teenager opened her mouth to speak though, Sasha shook her head. "Not a word." She managed through gritted teeth. As the leader, she knew it was down to her to decide Ashley's fate, and right now she needed to think.

As the car ate up the miles and Rachel and Nina both eventually succumbed to sleep, Sasha continued to process the options, finally fixing on her answer as they reached the next rest stop - this time including a meal break courtesy of some MREs of dubious age, handed out by one of the soldiers, while Ashley cowered particularly low behind the darkened glass of the rear windows.

"We have to take her with us." Sasha told the other three as she ripped open the meal bag, all of them sitting in a circle on the dusty roadside while Ash remained confined to the car. "The only other option is to send her on to Tucson with the convoy, and if we do that, word will spread nationwide about the CNO's disobedient daughter before the end of the day."

"Let it." Nina shrugged. "She can bear the consequences of her actions for once."

Rachel shook her head. The doctor had always been more sympathetic to Ash, even at the height of her terrible teenage behaviour towards Sasha when she was first dating Tom. "That's not fair to her, or to Tom. She's done something incredibly stupid, but she doesn't deserve public humiliation."

"And," Kat pointed out, "People would immediately start asking how she got there, who else was in the convoy, and so on. It could compromise our mission."

Sasha nodded. "Exactly. I've spent the last four hours looking at this from every angle, and I really don't see we've got a choice."

Nina sighed and then flung her MRE bag to the ground, standing and striding a few paces away.

"Nina, you need to eat something!" Kat exclaimed.

"I'm not hungry." The journalist snapped back, once again acting out of character.

"But-" Something in the way Kat was looking at Nina made Sasha remember that strange moment in the diner when Kat had gone to say something and her stepmother had clearly kicked her under the table. What was it again? _Dad made me promise to look after Nina and-_ The penny dropped.

"Nina! Are you pregnant?"

And all she needed was the look on her friend's face to confirm it.


	5. Our Girl

_Author's note: Apologies for the slight delay in updating, I was busy organising a wedding, which is more complicated than you might think!_

 _I have a definite sense now of the arc for this story, so should be able to update reasonably frequently, time allowing…_

 **Chapter 5 – Our Girl**

Ashley's presence prevented any further meaningful conversation inside the SUV, and the twelve hours that followed as they drove with the convoy to Phoenix were distinctly uncomfortable. When they reached the outskirts of the city and the Staff Sergeant called a halt through the two way radio, Sasha climbed out of the car with Kat and Nina and went to speak to him, leaving Rachel and Ashley alone together.

Rachel sighed as she turned to Tom's daughter, torn between intense disappointment and a degree of sympathy.

"Ash, what were you thinking?" She asked, genuinely at a loss.

Ash took a deep breath, and to Rachel's surprise, the eyes that looked up into hers were serious.

"Maybe I wasn't thinking enough, but I wanted to come with you all. I want to help." She swallowed, "I have to wait almost another year until I can join the Navy, but I'm basically done with school. All I do is sit at home being bored-"

"Bored?" Rachel couldn't help an incredulous laugh.

"Yes, bored!" Ash replied, her voice rising a little, "I'm not a kid anymore, but everyone still treats me like one! I can help with this mission, I know I can!"

"Ash, it's not as simple as that," Rachel tried to explain, "You have to have training-"

"You're a scientist! And Nina's a journalist!"

"I'll be staying in the house being a scientist; and Nina has spent most of her life in combat zones!" Rachel was fighting to stay calm.

"Teenagers talk!" Ashley countered, "Not to Nina or Sasha, even Kat's too old, but they'll talk to me. And they'll say a lot more than their parents will!"

The evidence that she'd thought it through - at least a little - stopped Rachel in her tracks, and Ash took the opportunity to press her point home.

"I can gather information in a different way, and all Sasha has to do is teach me the best techniques. I can do this!"

As they walked back to the SUV, Sasha was tackling Nina. "How pregnant are you?"

"Sixteen weeks, and feeling perfectly fine, just like I did first time round." Nina replied, a little defensively, "Only this time we planned it." She added. "Well, mostly."

As much as she was unhappy that Nina had kept it from her, Sasha couldn't help grabbing and squeezing her friend's hand. "It's great, Nina, really. I just don't understand why you didn't tell us!"

Nina sighed, "I would have, I was going to, but then you called with this mission and..." She gave a wry smile, "I didn't think you needed the extra worry. Like I said, I feel fine. And until your stepdaughter decided to throw a spanner in the works, I thought the level of risk on this trip was pretty low!"

They were almost back at the car, and Sasha saw Rachel and Ash climb out as they approached.

"Sasha," Rachel said as they drew near, "You should hear this."

Sasha glanced at Nina, who raised an eyebrow and stepped back to join Kat. The young lieutenant was lagging slightly behind them, tapping furiously into her phone again now that they had coverage. The slightly humorous look on Nina's face made Sasha breathe an inward sigh of relief. If the journalist was regaining her sense of humour, they might just be okay.

As Ashley tentatively explained her plan, Sasha's spirits rose a little further. Sure, it wasn't particularly well thought out, but it wasn't completely unfeasible either, and since they had no choice but to take Ash with them, at least this way she might be able to help. But there was still a niggling concern that she had to voice.

"Ash, your idea isn't without merit. But all you've shown so far is that you're reckless and don't follow instruction. How can I trust you to be a part of this?"

"You could look at it that I showed initiative?" Ashley tried, and to Sasha's surprise, she found herself laughing. For all that she was still furious with her stepdaughter on one level, on another she had to admit that what Ash had done was exactly the sort of thing that she herself, or certainly Nina, might have tried in their younger days, and she'd be a hypocrite if she didn't recognise that.

"Okay." She said. "I'll think it through. But right now I need to call your father."

Fourteen hours earlier, Tom had found the note when he went to wake Ashley. She hadn't appeared for breakfast, but that wasn't necessarily unusual, and he'd figured she was just sleeping late. On entering her room, however, he found the bed neatly made and a folded piece of paper on the pillow. His initial reaction was fear, but as he read the brief contents, it quickly turned to anger.

 _Dad, I've gone with Sasha. Please don't be mad, I know what I'm doing and I know I can help. I'll call you when we get there. I love you, Ash x_

He tried Sasha's cell phone immediately, but even before he heard the hopeless bleeping tone, he knew she'd be out of range. Ash's note almost implied that Sasha was in the know, but Tom trusted his wife, and he knew full well that she would never have signed up to something like this, especially not without his knowledge and agreement.

By the time Sasha finally called, he'd spent the day working off at least some of his frustrations by cleaning the house top to bottom, the twins crawling around his feet as he polished and scrubbed with a vigour he hadn't known since getting punishment detail back in basic training. When the phone rang and he saw his wife's name appear on the screen, he picked up the call and immediately cut to the chase.

"She's with you?"

 _Hello to you too_ , Sasha thought, before replying, "She is. And she'll stay with us."

"I don't see any other option," Tom agreed, "Without risking your mission or my reputation."

"Nor did I." They both fell silent for a moment, and Sasha found herself smiling just a little at the way that their brains clearly worked in parallel. "It'll be okay though," She offered, "She does actually have some kind of plan."

"Yeah, I bet she does." The mixture of pride and resignation in his voice mirrored Sasha's own feelings perfectly. "I shouldn't compliment her right now, but I have a feeling our daughter is going to be one hell of an operator some day."

"Our daughter?" She couldn't quite disguise the tremor in her voice. For all that she and Tom had been living together with the kids for over two years now, she'd always been very careful not to overstep the invisible line with Sam and Ash.

"Your influence is there, Sash," Tom said gently, "We both know it."

She felt a horrible pang of missing home ratchet through her chest, but she breathed it out and smiled, "Well then let's just hope she's got both of our skills for this."

"How much longer have you got on the road?" He asked.

"Six hours, maybe. We made really good time with the convoy, and Nina's keen to push on through. We should arrive before sunrise, which is what we wanted."

"You should get going." But his tone was still gentle. "Call me when you get there. I'll speak to Ash then as well."

"Aye aye." She replied with a smile, hoping Tom would know what that meant.

"I love you too." He said, and Sasha had to breathe away another pang as she hung up the call.


	6. Warm Welcome

_Author's note: And so it begins…_

 _Thank you always for reading, reviewing, following and favouriting._

 **Chapter 6 – Warm Welcome**

They finally arrived in Cross River shortly before sunrise, Nina following Kat's directions to the wood framed house on the edge of town where they'd be staying, a farmhouse style building not dissimilar to the one in which the Nolans lived back in St Louis.

"This is Ruth's place?" Ash asked, and Kat nodded.

"Her brothers lived here before the Immunes came to town. She's on leave from Pendleton to help us with this."

"Where are her brothers now?" Ash queried.

Kat turned around to look at her. "With them." She replied shortly.

As they pulled into the driveway, the front door opened and a young woman emerged, her blonde hair gleaming under the porch light. Sasha saw Kat's shoulders relax, and she suddenly realised who the frantic text messaging had been with.

As soon as Nina switched off the engine, Kat was out of the car, running to the porch and embracing the blonde. Then, as if to erase any lingering doubt, she took Ruth's face in her hands and kissed her.

Nina let out a burst of surprised laughter, and Sasha exchanged glances with Rachel. The only person who seemed completely unfazed was Ashley.

"I thought she and Ray-" Rachel began, but Ash answered before she could finish.

"They were. But now she's with Ruth."

"Well okay then." Nina shrugged and opened the car door. "Now we've got that cleared up..."

Ruth made coffee while they unpacked the SUV, and Kat allocated bedrooms.

"Someone has to share." She said, looking pointedly at Ash, who at least had the grace to blush.

"That's fine." Sasha and Rachel said at the same time.

"Sasha, you're in charge." Rachel reasoned. "You should have some thinking space. Ash can share with me."

Sasha conceded gratefully, and Kat led her to an attic bedroom whose skylights reminded her of hers and Tom's bedroom at home. It felt strangely comforting.

"You're going to brief us, right?" Kat asked, and Sasha nodded.

"Downstairs in ten minutes."

As she walked downstairs after quickly freshening up, she heard Nina and Kat speaking in what must be Nina's bedroom.

"-could have told me." Nina said, laughing slightly. "I mean, over the years if you think I've never-"

"Stop!" Kat was laughing too. "It's bad enough knowing you and Dad do it, thank you!"

"Do you love her?" Nina asked, her tone gentle.

Kat's reply was too low for Sasha to hear, and she hurried on down the stairs, feeling bad for eavesdropping.

They gathered in the large kitchen at the rear of the house, sitting round a well-scrubbed wooden table.

"Okay," Sasha laid her hands on the table, "You've all read the briefing, apart from Ashley of course-" She glanced at her stepdaughter, "So you know that we're here to gather intelligence, which will be used to decide a strategy to deal with the Immunes who have taken over this town. Everything we know from Kat and Ruth-" She nodded at the two young Marines, "Suggests that they are increasingly heavy on numbers, but low on technology. They're not carrying out surveillance or anything like that, though their compound has heavy security. From what Lissy Slattery has told us, that tallies with how they have organised themselves previously." She took a deep breath and a sip of coffee before continuing. "On that basis, we don't need elaborate cover stories, but if anyone asks, then like a lot of people in this new world of ours, we're just looking for somewhere to settle."

"And I'm renting out rooms in the house." Ruth added. "It's common practice in populated small towns now. I've been very careful not to publicly comment or say anything negative about my brothers moving into the compound, so we're covered on that score."

"Don't people know you're a Marine?" Nina asked.

"She's planted a rumour that she deserted." Kat replied, looking proudly at Ruth. "It should score points with the Immunes."

"Rachel has to stay out of sight," Sasha continued, "But the rest of us need to do the opposite. Be visible, make friends. Ash, I'll give you a crash course in some of this later on, but Nina and Kat, you know the drill." She hesitated, knowing she was about to address something that she hadn't ever expected to. "Kat, Ruth, from what Lissy told us, the Immunes are wedded to very traditional gender roles. I don't think-"

"It's okay." Kat put her out of her misery, "No PDA." She squeezed Ruth's hand and they both laughed.

Sasha smiled briefly. "For the first few days, all we have to do is walk around, meet people, soak up the gossip. We'll have a meeting like this every morning at 8am, and nobody leaves the house without letting someone else know where they're going and how long they expect to be. If plans change, call or send a text. Don't take any risks." She looked around them all, their faces as serious as hers. "The current plan is to pull out in two weeks, and we have a date with another convoy from San Diego to St Louis. The thing that matters to me most is all of us making that rendezvous in one piece. Okay?"

When the briefing was done, the sun had risen, but they all needed sleep. Kat and Ruth disappeared immediately into Ruth's ground floor bedroom, and others traipsed upstairs. Nina couldn't stop yawning, one hand over her mouth and the other on her belly as she retreated into her bedroom, but before her foot touched the second flight of stairs to her attic room, Sasha could hear Nina greeting Tex on the phone.

She was desperate to speak to Tom, but she also needed to sleep, so she elected to send a quick text letting him know that all was well and promising to call later, before she slipped out of her boots and sweater and collapsed onto the bed, her eyes closing as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Back in St Louis, Tom hardly heard the beep of his cell phone over the lusty screaming of both twins. Jed Junior - or JJ as he was increasingly known - had managed to kick his sister in the face, and then decided to join in when Amelia understandably started crying. Sam had already left for school and Jed Sr was on yet another fishing trip with his so-called Old Codgers Club, so Tom found himself with an infant in each arm, desperately trying to shush them both. It was only when his phone actually rang that he decided he had to try and pick up, manoeuvring to the couch and setting both children down, one hand hovering over them as the other snatched up the phone without looking at the screen.

"Sash?"

"Afraid not." It was Mike Slattery's voice. "Rachel just filled me in on your daughter's activities. Thought I should check up on you." He raised his voice, clearly able to hear the screaming, "Bad time?"

"You remember when Jamie was younger? Well, double it."

Mike laughed, "I'll stick with the three year old. Though I let him dress himself this morning and he looks like a gay pirate."

"What does a gay pirate look like?" Tom couldn't help asking.

"I'll send you a picture." Mike was still laughing. "Call me later and I'll bring you up to speed on work. It can wait til the screaming stops though."

"Good of you." Tom muttered, though Mike had already hung up. Turning his attention back to the twins he couldn't help sighing. One day down, thirteen to go.


	7. Familiar Faces

_Author's note: I really think Ash is a natural at this stuff. Though given her parentage, hardly surprising…_

 _Thank you for reading and reviewing, it's really appreciated!_

 **Chapter 7 – Familiar Faces**

"In this situation, you say as little as possible, and just remember I'm your big sister, okay?"

Ashley wanted to laugh at the stern look on Kat's face, but decided against it. "Okay, sis." She responded instead.

Sasha had spent the previous afternoon giving Ashley a crash course in intelligence gathering, before the whole group spent the evening agreeing and perfecting their cover stories; and this morning Kat was bringing her 'little sister' to enrol in school.

"Let's hear it one more time." Kat said firmly as she parked the car, and Ash tried not to roll her eyes. She was well aware that she was lucky to have won Sasha over and been made part of the mission, but she wished they'd all stop treating her like such a child.

"My name is Ashleigh Casey, you're my big sister Katherine Casey, our parents died, and we came to California because we heard it was easier to get work and we like the sunshine." She tried to make it sound as natural as possible. "I miss my boyfriend from back home and I'm mad with my sister for making me come here."

"Good." Kat nodded. "Where do we live?"

"In a boarding house for women on the edge of town. A girl called Ruth runs it. She's kind of weird, but there are photographs of her brothers everywhere and they look cool. It's a real shame they died."

The last part had been improvisation, and Kat looked thoughtful before she replied. "I like that. You're working on the theory that someone might know they're not dead, and give you a conversation starter about the Immunes?"

Ash nodded, and felt a swell of pride as Kat smiled approvingly before they climbed out of the car.

The town had never been large enough to have its own high school before the virus, but the former junior high building had now been commandeered as the school for all the district's students, right from elementary through to twelfth grade. As Ash and Kat walked through the hallways towards the signposted Principal's Office, they could see that even then most classrooms were still not in use. The populations of Cross River and surrounding towns had been decimated by the virus, of course; and teachers were in short supply everywhere.

As it turned out, the principal had previously been in charge of an elementary school across town, but having survived the virus, Mrs Chadwick had taken on the task of running the district's education in its entirety. She was a softly spoken middle aged woman, and Ash found herself liking her immediately. That feeling faded, however, when she asked Ash to wait outside while she spoke to Kat.

Standing in the corridor, idly kicking her foot against the wall, she jumped when the bell rang, and students began emerging from classrooms down the hall. They didn't look all that different from her schoolmates back in St Louis, though there were more girls wearing makeup, and she made a mental note to ransack Sasha's washbag when she got back to the house.

A few of the students looked at her curiously, and she tried out a slight smile, not wanting to look nervous, but not appear overconfident either. Her heart was beating a little faster than she'd like to admit, and as the door opened she carefully set her expression to nonchalant.

"You can come in now, Miss Casey." Mrs Chadwick smiled at her.

An hour later, Ash and Kat left the school, Ash holding her registration papers, timetable, and several textbooks. Somehow, in the excitement of all this, she'd forgotten that she'd actually have to attend school, and even do the homework. Because of the lack of teaching staff, seniors only attended school in the mornings though, so that should mean plenty of time to make friends and hang out later in the day.

"Look!" Kat suddenly pointed at a store on the corner. "Ice cream. You want to go get some?" The look she gave Ash was much more penetrating that her words would suggest, and Ash suddenly saw what Kat had seen – that the two young men hanging around outside the store were carrying rifles.

"Yeah!" Ash responded with enthusiasm, and grabbed her phone from her bag. "I want to take a picture to send to Matt though," She referenced her imaginary boyfriend, "We haven't had good ice cream in Virginia since the red flu!" She quickly but carefully took a couple of shots, capturing the two armed men, and then, as the door opened, a slightly older man carrying a large brown paper bag. He had lank dark hair, and as Kat and Ash watched from across the street, he clicked his fingers at the other two to follow him as he strode away, a couple of people stepping quickly off the sidewalk to make way for the three to pass.

"Who do you think that was?" Ash asked quietly, lowering her phone.

"I don't know." Kat said thoughtfully. "But the people who saw him, they looked scared."

To maintain their cover – and because after all, ice cream is ice cream – they went into the store and bought two large tubs of the stuff to take back to the house. Kat had borrowed Ruth's car, and when they pulled into the driveway, the SUV was there, meaning Sasha and Nina were also back from their exploratory trip into town.

Inside they found Rachel working at the kitchen table, one end of it now littered with her laptop and files, still processing data from her lab back in St Louis. She looked up with a rather distracted smile as they entered.

"How was it out there?"

"Interesting." Kat replied, while Ash put the ice cream in the freezer. "The school principal gave me a kind of warning, and I think we got our first look at some Immunes."

"That is interesting." Sasha walked in, closely followed by Nina. "We didn't pick up anything useful at all. The labour exchange is a complete boys club, and people at the market were too busy bartering to want to talk."

"Don't forget, that was revealing in itself." Nina noted, and Sasha conceded.

"True. Some of the food is a lot more scarce than it should be. I suspect the Immunes are controlling distribution somehow."

"Not ice cream though." Ash couldn't resist chipping in. "There's a whole ice cream store, more of it than I've seen anywhere since the virus."

"And that's where we saw the guys." Kat explained. "Three of them. One of them seemed to be in charge, or at least senior to the others. People seemed scared of them."

"Tell me you got pictures?" Sasha asked, and Ash handed over her phone.

"Plenty."

Sasha flicked through the images in silence, then handed the phone to Nina. "What do you think?"

"He's certainly superior to the other two. Better dressed and armed for one thing." Nina went to hand the phone back to Ash, but as she did so Rachel caught a glimpse of the screen.

"Wait!" The doctor snatched the phone from Nina's fingers, her face suddenly pale.

"Rach?" Nina queried, "What is it?"

"I know him." Rachel almost whispered. "The older one."

"How-" Sasha started, but Rachel was already speaking.

"I could never forget that face." She swallowed and looked up at them all. "That's the man who tried to shoot me."


	8. New Friends

_Author's note: I love that this story is developing in ways that I hadn't expected myself! Ashley just keeps fighting for centre stage…_

 _Thanks for reading!_

 **Chapter 8 – New Friends**

"Mike?" Rachel's phone was in the middle of the kitchen table, the speaker turned to full volume, and she and Sasha sat opposite each other, the others temporarily banished from the room.

"Hey sweetheart, I wasn't expecting your call until tonight." Mike sounded so pleased to hear from his wife that Sasha's stomach flipped. _Why did I bring them into this_ , she thought, not for the first time.

"You're on speaker, Sasha's with me." Rachel told him, her voice shaking slightly, and Mike's tone changed immediately.

"Sasha? What's going on?"

But it was Rachel who answered. "Mike… The man who tried to shoot me, the Immune… He's here."

"He can't be." Mike sounded disbelieving. "We caught him, I interrogated him myself, you know I did."

"I know, but it's him. We have pictures." Rachel's voice was shaking even more, and Sasha wanted to leave the room, but she knew she couldn't.

"Mike," She said instead, "What happened to him? After the interrogation?"

"We handed him over to law enforcement, or what was left of it. They locked him up."

"There wasn't a trial, or…?"

"In those days? We caught him red handed, that was enough. He was kept in a holding cell for a few months until they got the county jail up and running, then he was transferred there along with all the other scumbags. I'm telling you, it can't be him."

"I'm telling you, it is!" Rachel's voice had risen. "He wanted to kill me, Mike! I know what he looked like."

"Okay." Mike said, his voice quieter. "Send me the pictures, then give me a few hours, I'll make some calls. In the meantime, I want to speak to my wife alone."

"Of course." Sasha felt relieved as she left the room, then guilty as she heard Rachel dissolve into tears just before she closed the door.

At home in St Louis, Mike was trying hard to keep his temper. He wasn't angry with Rachel – he rarely ever managed that – but he was furious with Sasha all over again. And as he listened to his wife sobbing, he felt almost murderous.

"Rachel, sweetheart, it's alright." Normally, on the rare occasions that his wife cried, all he had to do was wrap her in his arms; words were thankfully not required. But now, words were all he had. "I'm going to fix this, I promise." His anger found a focus. "If it's him, I'll rain down hell on that compound, there'll be nothing left but a fucking crater a mile wide."

Rachel let out a slightly snotty laugh, "Just a mile? You're mellowing."

He let out a bark of laughter of his own, and then for a few seconds they just breathed down the phone. "Do you want to come home?" He asked, praying she'd say yes.

"I don't think so." Her voice sounded stronger. "It was just the shock. I want to see this through."

"I'll come get you, you know I will." He tried one more time.

"I know. But I'm okay, really." She took a deep breath. "How's Jamie today?"

Mike looked across the room at their three year old son. "Naked." He answered succinctly.

"What?" She was laughing slightly, and that made him feel better.

"I've been letting him pick his own clothes out, and today he wouldn't pick anything." He shrugged. "Can't do any harm, right?"

"Mike! What if he… traps something?!"

He snorted with laughter. "Then he'll learn the value of pants."

"Oh god, maybe I should come home." But she was still laughing.

"Nah, I'll put some pants on him. Okay?"

"Okay." She paused. "How do you do that?" She asked.

"Do what?" He replied, genuinely puzzled by the question.

"Five minutes ago I was a blubbering mess. Now I'm…not."

"They teach it at the Academy." He said with a straight face, even though she wasn't there to see it, and was rewarded with another laugh. "Seriously though, sweetheart, I'm going to go look into this, and I'll call you back later on, alright? And in the meantime, stay in the house, and keep that package I gave you within reach."

Rachel reached for the laptop bag propped against the table leg and felt inside for the increasingly familiar shape. "It's right here." She confirmed, and heard Mike's sigh of relief.

While they waited for Mike to call back, Kat briefed them all on what the school principal had told her while Ash was out of the room.

"She started off asking why we'd come to Cross River, and then she almost warned me off. Told me that there were some 'tensions' between groups within the town, and I might want to reconsider. I told her I'd bear it in mind, and then she said that at the very least Ash and I should keep ourselves to ourselves and reject any 'offers of help' from 'church groups'."

"That's interesting." Ruth said thoughtfully. Kat's friend had spent the morning in the backyard clearing out an outhouse to use as a makeshift office space, and her blonde hair was still full of grey dust, making her look prematurely aged. "The compound is built around an old church, but that's the first I've heard of them using that as a recruiting technique."

"Recruiting? Or vetting?" Sasha wondered out loud. "It would get them into your house, maybe, to ask some questions-"

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Rachel immediately ran upstairs, grabbing her laptop bag as she went, and Ruth cautiously headed to the door. Sasha, Nina, Kat and Ashley stayed in their seats at the kitchen table, trying to hear what was happening in the hallway, but the voices were too low. After a few minutes, Ruth called out.

"Ashley? Someone here to see you!"

Ash couldn't help shooting a panicked glance at Sasha, but her stepmother's face was reassuringly calm. She took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway. Kat, in her role as big sister, followed a couple of paces behind. A tall blonde boy of around seventeen stood by the door, and Ash immediately registered his resemblance to Ruth.

"This is my brother, Will." Ruth said, her tone strangely neutral.

"Hi Ashleigh." Will's face creased into a ready smile, and Ash felt a little jolted. This boy was really good looking. "My teacher, Mr Park, told me you were joining our class and staying at Ruth's, so I thought I'd come introduce myself." He continued. "And see my sister," He added as an afterthought, his smile dimming a little as he glanced at Ruth.

"That's really nice of you." Ash managed to reply, her heart pounding. "It's weird joining a new school in senior year."

"I'm sure you'll catch up quick." He replied, with another of those smiles. "Anyway, a few of us from school go to church group on a Thursday afternoon, and I thought you might like to come along. You could meet some people before you start school, you know?"

Ash looked over her shoulder at Kat, in what she hoped was just the way someone might look to their big sister in this situation. Kat stepped forward a little.

"Hi Will, I'm Katherine. I'm Ashleigh's sister, and her guardian."

"Nice to meet you, ma'am." Will nodded, "I promise I'll bring Ashleigh home myself, well before curfew."

Kat looked as though she was considering it, and Ash thought she might be sick. Half of her was desperate for Kat to say no, and the other half of her was desperate to prove that she could do this.

"It's a church group, you say?" Kat asked. "And just for a few hours?"

"Yes ma'am." Will confirmed. "Church is just about a block away from the School."

"Well, alright." Kat sounded a little reluctant, and Ash wondered if that was real or just for cover. "But home in time for dinner, okay?"

Ash nodded, and tried to smile, and Will gave another grin.

"I'll just get my jacket." Ash muttered and ran upstairs to the room she shared with Rachel, closing the door carefully behind her as she entered.

"What's happening?" Rachel asked in a low voice, but Ash shook her head. She didn't want to risk their voices being overheard, but she also thought she might throw up if she opened her mouth. Instead she grabbed her jacket and shoulder bag, and threw Rachel a tight smile as she left again.

Alone in the car with Will, she forced herself to find her voice. "I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous." She said. "It's kind of overwhelming, everything being new."

"I get it." Will agreed. "Must be hard, moving across country. Where did you move from again? Mr Park did tell me, but I forgot." Another smile, but it didn't quite hide the weight of the question. Ash suddenly appreciated anew the way Sasha had repeatedly drilled them on their cover stories.

"From Virginia, near Richmond?"

"Your sister live there too? She sounds different to you." Again, the smile.

"She was at college in Tennessee, that's where my mom was from. My parents were divorced."

"That's rough, I'm sorry." The smile was somehow more genuine this time, if less dazzling. "My parents split up when we were little too. My dad wasn't around much. He was in the military, that's how come my sister joined up." The smile had vanished.

"Ruth was in the military?" Ash feigned surprise.

"Oh sure, right up until recently. She finally saw sense I guess." He turned into a side road. "Okay, here we are."

Ash mustered a smile. "Great!" Taking a deep breath, she climbed out of the car and followed Will into the large grey stone building, trying not to feel as though she was being swallowed up by something sinister.


	9. Sic Semper Tyrannis

_Author's note: I'm writing at quite a pace right now, and I can never resist posting as soon as a chapter's done and dusted!_

 **Chapter 9 – Sic Semper Tyrannis**

"I shouldn't have let her go." Kat paced the kitchen. "I made the wrong call."

"You didn't." Sasha reassured, but the knotted feeling in her stomach said otherwise. "You set a time frame, she has her phone, we know where she is."

"She wanted to do this." Nina reminded them both, though her face was a little pale. "And they're kids. Brainwashed kids maybe, but they're certainly not going to hurt her."

Sasha nodded and took a deep breath, turning to Rachel. "Anything from Mike yet?"

The doctor shook her head. "Nothing. But it's only been a couple of hours."

"Maybe I should-" Sasha started, then stilled as she heard the front door open.

Rachel cringed, as if making to hide under the table, but as Ashley walked into the room, there were five sighs of relief.

"Are you okay?" Sasha wanted to hug her, but knew Ash would hate it, so instead settled for touching her arm.

Ash nodded. "I'm okay." She let out a long breath of her own, and Sasha noticed a hint of tears in her eyes, but her stepdaughter blinked them back and mustered a grin. "It was actually pretty easy. Will asked a lot of questions though."

"About us?"

"About me and Kat. But once we got there, it was kind of like a prayer meeting, then there were cookies and lemonade." She rolled her eyes a little. "The prayer meeting was kind of interesting though. The guy leading it wasn't a reverend or anything, I don't think so anyway. But he talked a lot about how everyone who survived the virus was special, how we had a purpose, but that the plague wasn't over yet and when it was only the truly blessed would survive."

"Did he mention immunity at all?" Nina was leant forward in her chair, listening intently.

Ash shook her head, "Will asked me if I ever caught the virus - I lied and said no - but no one talked about immunity. It was all about 'the saved'."

"That figures." Nina said quietly.

"What do you mean?" Kat asked.

"Myths adapt," Nina answered. "So does that kind of rhetoric. It alters to fit the facts. The Immunes were sunk after you found the cure, Rach; they weren't the only special people in the world, because God wouldn't have let the cure be found if they were, would he?" She stood and began to pace, "So they adapt – everyone still alive was saved! Hallelujah! We're all special people. But there's a new threat coming, a second wave of the virus, and this time, only the truly blessed will survive." She wheeled around and looked at them all, "Don't you see? It's just another version of a doomsday cult."

"Cult?" Ruth's voice was a little high.

Kat shot Nina a glance, "Your brothers will be okay," She reassured Ruth, taking her hand, "We're going to stop this, remember?"

Ruth nodded slightly. "I should go and finish up in the outhouse." She said, rising abruptly from her chair.

"I'll come with you," Kat offered, keeping hold of her hand as they left the room.

"Ash, you need to write down a full account of everything you can remember from this afternoon." Sasha told her to break the suddenly awkward silence. "You can use my laptop. Who was there, what was said, the dynamics within the group-"

Ashley was already nodding. "I'll go do it now. Then I need to shower before dinner." She looked almost shy for a second as she muttered, "Nervous sweat."

Once again, Sasha wished she could hug her. "Happens to us all, trust me."

As Ash ran upstairs, Rachel's phone rang, making her jump slightly. "Mike." She said briefly before she answered, leaving the room as she greeted her husband.

Sasha was tempted to follow her out, but decided to allow Rachel her privacy. She could always follow up with Mike herself later. Glancing at her own phone, she saw a text message from Tom.

 _All fine here. We miss you, but we're proud of you._

Smiling slightly, she looked over at Nina, whose hand was tucked unconsciously over her belly as she tapped into her cell phone.

"How's Tex?"

"He's fine." Nina replied without looking up. "Jack's running him ragged a little bit, but nothing he can't handle."

Sasha nodded, "I guess Tom's the same."

"So is Mike." Rachel said, coming back into the room. "Other than our son's refusal to wear pants, everything seems fine." She took a breath, "It looks like the man Kat and Ashley saw is the man who wanted to shoot me. He was released from the county jail when a judge reviewed convictions last year – mainly because he was never actually convicted of anything." She shook her head, "It was all so chaotic when we first got the St Louis, law and order sort of fell by the wayside for a while. It was right that everything was reviewed, I just-" She broke off, taking another deep breath as she visibly tried to keep her emotions in check. "The photos are a match, and it makes sense. Sasha, maybe you could see if the NIS has anything further, now we know who he is."

"Do you have a name?" Sasha was already pulling a notepad towards her.

Rachel snorted slightly, "John Wilkes Booth."

Nina dropped her head into her hands and half laughed. "Of course. Sounds like the kind of grandiose idiocy you'd expect from a cult leader."

"Whoa, we don't know he's the leader." Sasha protested. "But I'll contact the NIS and see if we have anything that ties up with that."

Nina raised her head, her face serious. "I bet you my house that he's the leader. He's got one hell of a claim to fame-" She broke off suddenly. "Sasha, we need to look at conspiracy theories around Rachel."

"Wha-" Rachel began, but Nina was still speaking.

"Is there any kind of consistent claim about assassination?" She continued, "Any groups or individuals claiming responsibility for her death?"

"I'm right here!" Rachel half shouted, and Nina stopped.

"Rach, I'm sorry." She turned to her friend. "I get like this when I'm following a story. The pieces start falling into place…" She let out a long breath. "Do you want to hear what I'm thinking?" She glanced at Sasha, who nodded, as did Rachel.

"Shall I get the others?" Rachel asked as she went to pull up a chair, and Sasha shook her head.

"Not yet." She looked seriously at her two friends. "I know how capable Kat is, and Ash is amazing me, but the three of us…" She tried to think how to articulate it. "The things we've seen and done, the way we look at the world, that's why we're leading something like this-"

Nina gave her the ghost of a smile, "Careful Sasha, your respect for rank is showing. Just say you don't want to bring the junior officers into this just yet. We both get that."

Sasha gave her a smile of relief. "Okay. Now tell us what you're thinking."

"Alright," Nina began, "So a lone Immune follower tries to assassinate Dr Scott. That's straightforward enough – the Immune leaders at the time were talking about the plague from God, wiping out the unholy or whatever nonsense, so if that's what you believe, then it follows that the woman who developed a cure is some kind of heretic she devil who should be terminated with extreme prejudice-" She broke off and made a face. "Sorry Rach, I get carried away. Anyway, he fails. But there's no trial, no public investigation, not even a story in the press. So in prison, he comes up with a narrative of his own. Rachel Scott is dead, because he killed her, and the government is covering it up. After a while, he almost starts to believe it. And when he gets out, he goes looking for some of his old friends. Most of them have integrated back into the real world, but there are still a few who need to cling to the belief that they're special, but how can you, now the cure has been found?"

"So John Wilkes Booth gives them a new story." Rachel chipped in. "Like you said earlier. Everyone still alive is special."

Nina nodded, "But God had him kill you, because a second plague is coming, and this one will have no cure. This one is truly going to save only the blessed."

"And the blessed are those who follow him." Sasha concluded. "It's a good story, but there are holes."

"I know," Nina laughed slightly. "That's where you come in."

"Why here?" Sasha said, "Why Cross River? That's the first question. And we need to check your theory about Rachel's supposed assassination. And-"

"And we need to get to work." Rachel interrupted. "Because there's something you haven't mentioned yet."

"What?" Sasha and Nina both turned to her.

"The second plague." Rachel's face was grave. "It's not going to happen naturally, I've seen to that. But the red flu came from one rogue scientist. And that scientist was bosom buddies with the Immunes for a while. I don't want to say it, I don't even want to think it, but what if they're trying to develop a new virus? Right here in Cross River?"


	10. Early Birds

_Author's note: This is just a little interlude, as I thought we might like to see how the guys are getting on back home…_

 _Thank you for reading, reviewing, following and favouriting._

 **Chapter 10 – Early Birds**

Tom was woken at 5am by high pitched screams that reached him not only from the baby monitor, but all the way from the twins' room on the floor below. Cursing as he stumbled on the narrow staircase down from the attic bedroom, he ran into the nursery to find JJ staring through the bars of his cot, red faced and howling, and Amelia in the exact same state.

"What happened guys?" His tone was soothing as he picked up his children, one in each arm, and tried rocking them. "It's very early."

"Very early!" A muffled voice shouted from down the hall, and he heard Sam's bedroom door slam shut. He hadn't liked to mention it to Sasha, but Sam seemed to have hit his moody adolescent phase at the exact moment his stepmother's car had pulled out of the driveway.

"Shush, come on, shush," The volume had dropped a little, and Amelia was snivelling rather than screaming at this point, though her brother was still at it.

Tom tried not to notice the mess that the nursery was in; the laundry basket overflowing, toys everywhere, and even clean clothes rumpled and tossed haphazardly onto almost every surface. He could picture in his mind's eye the similar state of disarray into which the large one plan living space downstairs had fallen, especially the kitchen area, and winced. That was another thing he hadn't liked to mention to Sasha. As was the fact that the twins had been so fussy and unhappy.

"I miss mommy too," He told them now. "I miss her a lot."

A few miles down the road, Tex was woken by a text message, the harsh beeping of his phone pulling him out of sleep only a couple of hours after he'd finally managed to drop off. It wasn't Jack's fault – his son had been good as gold – but sleeping without Nina beside him was proving surprisingly difficult. He switched on the bedside light and reached for his phone to see the message from his wife.

 _I felt the baby move_

His stomach lurched a little as he quickly replied. _How's the little Nolan feeling?_

 _It was very gentle. Maybe this one's a girl._

 _Wouldn't that be nice._ He typed, _Jack could have a little sister to look out for._

 _Maybe I shouldn't have brought her here._

He closed his eyes for a second before replying. _You did the right thing, Callaghan. Just keep one hand on your belly and the other on your gun. I love you darlin._

In St Louis, Mike was already awake, watching three year old Jamie almost dancing in his sleep as the little boy lay on Rachel's side of the bed. He'd obediently put on pyjamas at bedtime, which was a relief after his earlier nude protest, but wouldn't go to sleep in his own room. Trouble was, the kid thrashed around in his dreams, even when they were happy ones, and to Mike, used to sleeping still as a statue curled around his wife, the constant motion acted like an hourly wake up call.

"This is why I'm hard wired to love you." He said softly, stroking the hair back from Jamie's forehead in an attempt to calm him, "So I don't make you sleep in a kennel."

He missed Rachel fiercely, detesting her being out of his sight for more than a few hours. As far as he was concerned, his job was to protect her, and right now he felt like he was failing. The news that John Wilkes Booth, or whatever his goddamn name was, had been released from prison without any notification to himself or Rachel made him so angry that he'd wanted nothing more than to head to the firing range and unload enough bullets into an effigy of the guy to kill him a hundred times over. But as he was on childcare duty, he'd had to settle for a punishing home workout that left his muscles screaming. He allowed himself a reluctant smile at the memory of Jamie's delighted squeals when he was invited to 'ride on Daddy' to add weight during his push ups.

Rolling onto his back, he sighed and tried to push the feeling of foreboding from his chest. Rachel knew what she was doing, he reminded himself. She'd proven that countless times. But however hard he tried, he couldn't get back to sleep.


	11. Purpose

_Author's note: So I took a little break to listen to the plot bunnies screaming for Lucifer, and then for S4 TomSha, but writing S4 made me realise how much I love the Step version of TLS, so now we're back to this story, and I've got it plotted right the way through to the end! So without further ado, here we go…_

 **Chapter 11 – Purpose**

Over the next few days, Ruth's house in Cross River became the centre of a hive of activity. When they weren't out - separately and together - checking out leads, making new friends and mining for information, the six women were sat in the 'control centre', as they'd nicknamed the outhouse that Ruth had cleared for that purpose, plugging every morsel of information into the databases of the National Intelligence Service, and trying to make connections.

"There was definitely a lab here." Rachel said stubbornly on Tuesday afternoon, pacing round the table where Nina and Sasha were sat. "There are enough rumours to-"

"Rumours! Nothing more." Sasha tried to hide her exasperation. "We haven't found a shred of credible evidence-"

"Except the say-so of three different highly respected scientists!" Rachel countered.

"None of whom ever saw-"

"Stop it!" Nina snapped. The journalist had dark circles under her eyes, and she rubbed at them with the heels of her hands. "Why are we going over the same ground? Look at the wall!" She gestured to the white painted brickwork that was now covered in scribbles, sticky notes, pictures and more. "Right there, under 'Assumed'. It's not under 'Known', because it isn't. And if you fight about it one more bloody time, I'm going to…" She trailed off and huffed with annoyance. "Put rats in your beds. Or something."

Despite their frustration and tiredness, all three of them managed slight smiles.

"Sorry." Rachel had the grace to apologise first, and Sasha quickly followed suit.

"Ash will be back from School any minute." Nina pointed out, "And someone will need to debrief her."

"Better be you," Sasha said. "If Kat's little church visit succeeds, I'll need to be on hand to go with her to the meeting tonight."

Nina nodded. "Rach, did you get hold of that professor? The one from… New York?"

"New Hampshire." Rachel corrected. "And no, I'm waiting for him to call me back."

Intelligence work was always frustrating, Sasha reminded herself. Especially now, when there was such restricted access to surveillance equipment, phone tapping, and the other tricks of the trade. "If we can get into this group meeting tonight, I think it could give us a breakthrough." She said, not for the first time, "If he's there…"

Neither of her friends responded, but then they didn't need to. They all knew how high the stakes were.

The day after Ashley's visit to the church with Will, she had started school, and quickly came home with the information that some of the parents and guardians went to an evening 'prayer meeting' at the Church on Tuesdays. They'd waited over the weekend for Kat to receive an invitation, especially after she and Ashley attended Sunday service together, but although Will came by to take Ash bowling with some of the other kids from church, nothing was forthcoming. Today's plan therefore had Kat stopping by the Church to thank them for making Ash feel so welcome, in the hope she might be encouraged to attend the evening meeting.

Sasha checked her phone for the umpteenth time, and finally felt a smile of relief cross her face as she read the long awaited text from Kat. "We're on." She said quietly.

A few hours later, she and Kat were in the car on the way to the Church, both twitching with anticipation. Sasha had a small pistol in an ankle holster, and she was pretty sure Kat had at least one knife secreted about her person, but on the outside they were both looking approachable in jeans, Sasha's teamed with a fitted t-shirt and jacket, and Kat's with a cotton shirt. Having studied the standard attire in the town, Sasha was confident they'd fit right in.

Because Sasha's cover as 'Sam Chase' didn't include any link to Ash – other than happening to live in the same boarding house – she had had no contact with the school parent crowd, but as they arrived at the Church, Kat was able to smile and greet a couple of people she'd bumped into around town with Ash at the weekend.

"This is Sam," She introduced Sasha to them, "We're rooming in the same house. She's been very kind to Ashleigh."

"Do you have children of your own, Sam?" A motherly looking woman asked, and Sasha felt a flare of genuine pain for a second as she answered, "I did, before…" It was a cover they'd agreed, to make her more sympathetic; but it not only made her miss the twins, it brought back memories of the miscarriage she'd suffered just after the red flu hit.

"I'm so sorry." The woman said gently, patting her arm, but Sasha could detect just a trace of something else in her voice as she asked, "You didn't catch the virus yourself?"

She shook her head. "No, not me. The rest of my family, but… not me."

The woman looked right into her eyes. "You were saved for a purpose." She said, "Take comfort in that."

And Sasha nodded, making sure to look grateful, even though she wanted to punch her in the face.

Prayer meetings took place in a mid-sized room off of the Church's main space, which Sasha suspected had once been a private prayer room, or small chapel, but was now organised with rows of chairs facing a battered wooden lectern. When the meeting was called to order and the three dozen or so people in the room took their seats, Sasha's heart sank as a man they hadn't seen before stood up at the lectern and started to speak.

"Thank you all for coming-"

But Sasha was distracted by the noise of the door opening quietly, and carefully turned just enough to see a figure slip into the room. The man was thin, lank haired, and would have been completely unremarkable – if he hadn't been John Wilkes Booth, Rachel's would-be assassin and apparent cult leader. He leaned against the wall and directed his attention to the man at the lectern, who was now starting to lead the group in a prayer.

The first twenty minutes of the meeting consisted of what Sasha was pretty sure would be the content of any normal prayer meeting – not that she'd ever been to one before. But then finally things got interesting, as John Wilkes Booth stepped forward and took over at the lectern.

"Friends," He began, "I am always humbled to see so many of you here, and especially to see new followers joining us, sharing in our message." He eyes swept the room and for a few seconds his gaze locked with Sasha's. She wanted to shudder, but instead gave him a smile. "We are blessed, all of us. We were saved for a purpose, and we will be saved again!"

There was a murmur of agreement from the small congregation.

"The time will soon be at hand when the skies will burn and the sea will boil, as the second great plague sweeps the earth, but we will be safe and protected within these walls, and when the earth is cleansed we will take our rightful place in leading the survivors into a new world of our making, one which honours God as he always intended."

As the congregation reacted with a louder murmur this time, Sasha risked a sideways glance at Kat, and saw that the younger woman could barely hide her disgust, feelings that mirrored her own. She forced her emotions away and focussed on the content of what the leader was saying as he continued his sermon, searching for linguistic clues, tells, anything that might hint at what his real plan was. She carefully filed it all in her memory, ready to recount to Rachel and the others when she returned home. _Skies burning, seas boiling…_ It didn't sound like a virus, but then what was it?

John Wilkes Booth spoke for around fifteen minutes, and by the end the congregation were on their feet hollering support. Sasha and Kat were careful to join in while holding back just a little, in their role as new supporters of the Church.

As the meeting finished, Sasha deliberately stayed in her seat while Kat was drawn into conversation with the woman she had introduced her to earlier. She kept an awareness of John Wilkes Booth's position in the room, and deliberately lowered her head as if praying quietly whenever anyone else was in danger of trying to engage her in conversation. As the room slowly started to empty, she stayed where she was, and she was finally rewarded by a soft male voice addressing her.

"You must be Sam."

She looked up at him and gave a slightly shy yet warm smile. "I am. I'm sorry, did you need me to leave?" She deliberately adopted a deference and hesitance that she felt instinctively would play well with him.

"No, not at all." He sat down next to her, just a little too close. "I wanted to welcome you to the Church. I'm JB, and I'm the man in charge around here."

"Your words were very moving," She acknowledged carefully. "Ashleigh told me about the student prayer group, and your message, and when Katherine invited me here, well, I felt I had to come."

He looked deep into her eyes. "You're searching for a purpose."

"I was," She knew she was laying it on thick, but her instincts told her that this was the right way to go. "But now I think I may have found it, here in Cross River."

He laid his hand over hers and inwardly Sasha punched the air. "I feel sure you have, Sam. Your path lies with us."


	12. Acceleration

_Author's note: I'm blown away by how many readers this is getting, especially now that season 4 has started to air. Thank you so much, and please don't forget to review if you enjoy!_

 **Chapter 12 – Acceleration**

"I'm not comfortable with this." Even without being able to see him, Sasha knew Tom was shaking his head. "This was supposed to be intelligence gathering, not an undercover operation-"

"There is no clear line between the two!" She interrupted. "You know that, Tom!" She paced the control centre, the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder as she continued to scribble on the pad she was holding in her left hand. "Besides, I'm just talking to the guy!"

"The cult leader, you mean. The psychopath who tried to murder Rachel." She heard him pause as he switched gears, "Have you told Mike about this?"

Sasha took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. "Thomas, I work for the National Intelligence Service. Not the Navy. I'm telling you because you're my husband, and because you have clearance. I don't actually need to tell the CNO – or the Vice CNO – anything at all."

At their home just outside St Louis, Tom winced. Sasha only ever called him Thomas when she was seriously pissed. He glanced around the room, ignoring the mess as he searched out their wedding picture on the wall.

"I'm sorry." He said honestly. "But I'm worried about you-"

"You think I can't handle this? You think I've gone soft?" Even as she said it, Sasha knew she was being unfair. If anything, she was only voicing her own worst fears.

"No! No." Tom's voice gentled, "I'm worried because I love you. You're my wife, and the mother of my kids, and you're in a dangerous situation. I'm going to worry about you." He stepped closer to the photograph and put his fingertip next to her radiant face, "I have no doubt at all that you know what you're doing. Trust me on that."

Sasha closed her eyes for a moment and let out a long breath. She hadn't realised how much she'd needed to hear that. "Okay."

Outside in the back yard, Nina and Kat had retreated to give Sasha some privacy, but as they had no desire – or skills – to help with the dinner Rachel and Ruth were preparing inside the house, they were sitting on lawn chairs looking up at the darkening sky.

"The one thing I miss about the electricity curfew." Kat commented, "It meant you could see all the stars so clearly."

Nina smiled slightly, tucking a hand over her slightly rounded belly. "I miss that about home." She said quietly.

Kat looked over at her stepmother in surprise. Nina wasn't usually the sentimental type. "You're missing home?"

Nina met her eyes, "I didn't have a home for the longest time, kiddo. Now I do, I don't really like being away any more." She shrugged. "Things change when you fall in love." She looked at Kat carefully, and the younger woman remembered belatedly how shrewd Nina was. "You must know that by now?"

"Maybe." Kat allowed, looking up at the sky again.

"Do you love her?" Nina asked softly, a question she'd asked once before, and which Kat hadn't felt ready to answer then either.

"I don't know." She almost whispered. She hadn't planned on confiding in her stepmother, but the longer they spent in Cross River, the more confused she was becoming, and with the pace of their mission increasing so quickly, this might be the best chance she was going to get. "It's not the same, here." She said.

Nina stayed quiet, allowing Kat's jumbled thoughts to make their way past her lips.

"We met in officer training, and it was so intense, we got close so quickly, and it just… happened. I thought… But since we've been here, it hasn't felt the same."

"What happened with Ray?" Nina asked after a moment, and Kat jumped slightly.

"Nothing ever really happened. A few kisses, I guess, but-"

"That's not what I meant." Nina's voice was so soft, carrying a weight of understanding, and the thought suddenly crossed Kat's mind that this must be partly what had made her so successful as a journalist, reporting on wars and revolutions and marginalised people. She'd just sit with them like this and let them talk.

"He's so together." She replied, her own voice quiet, "I was never sure what he felt. Or didn't. I mean, I know what I feel – felt – but…" She paused, "He's so closed off, independent. He doesn't seem to need anyone." She let a little of her frustration show.

"Neither do you."

"Only on the outside!" Kat protested, and Nina gave her the ghost of a smile as she reached over and squeezed her hand.

"Well that makes all of us, kiddo."

Kat opened her mouth to reply, but Ashley came through the back door and into the yard, looking somehow excited and worried at the same time.

"Where's Sasha?"

"Talking to your dad in the shed." Nina replied. "What happened?"

"I need to talk to Sasha-" Ash started towards the control centre, but Sasha came out before she could reach the door.

"Ash? You okay?" Sasha took in her stepdaughter's flushed cheeks and slightly manic air. "What's going on?"

"Will asked me to move into the compound at the Church." She glanced round, taking in Nina and Kat as she continued. "There's a girls' dorm. He thinks I should come and live there, take a more active part."

Nina whistled, "Well ain't that something." She remarked, in a perfect imitation of her husband's voice, before returning to her own British tones, "What do you think, Ash?"

"I could do it." Ashley said, her voice trembling just slightly, though whether it was fear or excitement or both, Sasha couldn't tell. "It's not like the place is locked down, not like the actual Church. I'd still be going to school, doing everything as usual. I'd just sleep there, and be part of more activities. It could be really good…"

"It could be really dangerous." Kat voiced what Sasha herself was thinking.

 _And Tom would never agree to it_ , was her next thought, but at the same time, there was so much potential.

"I could go for a few days?" Ash suggested, "Tell Will that Kat and I have agreed for me to try it and see how we both feel?"

Everyone was looking at Sasha as she considered it. Biting back a pang of guilt at keeping it from Tom, she nodded slowly. "Okay. But you wear a tracker, and carry a weapon."

Rachel had stepped into the yard behind them, unnoticed until she let out a sharp exclamation. "Sasha, no!" She strode over to join the small group. "It's far too dangerous. If they are trying to manufacture a new virus, then-"

"We have no proof there was a lab here." Sasha argued, "And I told you, from the rhetoric at that prayer meeting, it doesn't sound like a virus."

"It sounds like something worse!" Rachel countered.

"Worse?" Ruth had followed Rachel outside and her expression was wary. "I thought this was all about the virus."

"Until we know better, it is." Rachel said, shooting a look at Sasha. "Let's not forget, this mission started because they were spreading rumours about fresh infections and the cure no longer working. Even if we haven't seen evidence of that, it points to that being what they're trying to achieve."

"Which is why I need to take this chance!" Ash interjected. "Don't you see? If I'm there in the compound, I can snoop around and try to find-"

This time it was Sasha, Rachel and Nina all together who said, "No!"

Sasha was the one to clarify. "Ash, if you move into the compound, your only job is to keep your eyes and ears open. If you got caught sneaking around, or looking where you shouldn't be, your cover would be blown-"

"And they'd probably kill you." Kat said bluntly.

Ash had gone a little pale. "Okay. Eyes and ears open. That's all."

There was a slightly awkward silence as Sasha waited for Rachel to object again, but instead the scientist just shook her head.

"Ash, are you really sure you want to do this?"

Ash nodded, and reached for Rachel's hand. "I promise." She looked so adult in that moment that Sasha bit back an unexpected wave of emotion. "I know what I'm doing. And I know how to follow orders. You said no snooping, so I won't snoop. I'll just eat, sleep and pray."

Rachel pulled Ash into a hug, and Sasha found herself wishing once again that her own relationship with Ash included such easy affection.

"Well alright then." She said briskly, keeping her expression neutral as she looked around at them all. "Looks like we're heading into phase two."


	13. Green Light

_Author's note: Sorry about the break, turns out studying while working full time is more demanding than I thought! So here, have two chapters at once to make up for it!_

 **Chapter 13 – Green light**

"I knew it!" Rachel burst into the control centre, her face flushed and her breathing a little unsteady. Sasha and Nina looked up from the detailed map of the town, which they'd been studying in continued attempts to establish whether a lab had ever existed, and where it might be.

"What?" Sasha pulled a notepad towards her instinctively.

"That was Professor Ellory, the researcher in New Hampshire I've been trying to reach. Not only did he confirm that there was a government lab based here in Cross River, but-" She gave them both a stern look, as though daring them to interrupt, "He worked here for six months, on a military research project!"

"What project?" Sasha asked, at the same time as Nina leaned over the map again, her finger poised.

"Where is it?"

Rachel visibly swallowed. "That's the worrying part."

"Which?" Nina asked impatiently.

"Both; but the location…" Rachel gave Sasha a look that was almost apologetic. "You know the Church sits right in the middle of a conveniently walled off compound-"

Sasha felt her stomach flip as she sat down abruptly. _Ashley._ Her stepdaughter had been living in the compound for two days now, and although everything had been fine so far, if they'd suspected this then Sasha never would have agreed to it.

"Well," Rachel continued, "The whole site was boarded off back then, supposed to be condemned with work going on to make it safe, but that was all a cover. It was a secret military research facility, underneath the Church. It shut down about three months before the red flu - budget cuts – but it may not have been fully decommissioned before everything..." She trailed off.

"And what were they working on?" Nina's voice was quiet, and Sasha still couldn't quite speak.

"Responses to chemical and biological warfare. Anti-toxins, that sort of thing."

"Better than developing bioweapons." Nina said, but Sasha found her voice just as Rachel opened her mouth to disagree.

"You mean, the bioweapons they'd need samples of to test their antidotes on?"

Nina visibly paled, and all three of them were silent for a moment before Sasha took a deep breath and stood up.

"I'm supposed to be meeting JB at the Church later. I think I should go, ask for a tour of the compound, and try to get the lay of the land. Get every bit of intel we can before we sound the alarm."

"And get Ashley out." Rachel added firmly, "Yes?"

Sasha shook her head. "That's Kat's job. We need to brief her. If I can see any evidence that they have a working lab under the Church, then this mission is done, and I'm calling in military support. I want Ash out of there, but it has to look coincidental." But even as she voiced the smart, sensible plan, her heart was screaming at her to bust into the place right now and carry Ash out. She forced the instinct back down as she added, "Either way, chances are we're going to be leaving here tonight."

"So what do we do right now?" Rachel asked.

Sasha reached for her cell phone. "I think I'd better call my boss." She winced slightly, "And probably the CNO."

Two hours later, she presented herself at the gate of the Church compound with the shy smile of her cover persona, and was gratified to see that JB had come to the gate to meet her himself.

"Sam." He looked at her a little more appreciatively than was comfortable, but for the purposes of the mission, that was all to the good. "I'm so pleased you've taken the time to visit with me."

Sasha gave him that shy smile again, and willingly took the arm he offered her. "I'm so flattered you want to show me this place. I don't really know what good I can do-"

He interrupted her. "You can do good just be being here." As they strolled through the gate and into the wide square space that marked the centre of the compound, bordered on one side by the side wall of the church, and on the other three by the low buildings in which she already knew his most faithful followers lived – including Ashley – she pretended to look around in appreciation.

"How many people are living here?"

"We have sixty, but thirty of those are kids, mostly orphans. Your little friend Ashleigh lives here now."

"I know." She smiled, though it almost killed her. "She was so excited. Though I think Katherine finds it hard being apart from her." Ash had already planted that seed when she'd moved into the compound and Sasha needed to water it to help cover Kat's extraction of Ash, which should be happening right about now.

"I'm sure she does. Ashleigh is a very special girl." He gave her a smile that was clearly supposed to be charming, "Just as you're a very special woman, Sam. I knew from the moment I saw you that you were brought here for a purpose." He was leading her towards a narrow alleyway between two of the housing blocks. "I thought we could visit in my quarters, where we can talk and pray without interruption."

"That would be wonderful." Sasha replied, her voice ringing with sincerity, even as she felt the reassuring weight of the gun in her purse over her shoulder. "I've felt so confused since the virus, and I feel as though I might find peace here." She was laying it on with a trowel, but he was eating it up.

"I feel sure you will." He opened the door of a small wooden building situated just behind the largest of the three housing blocks. "Come on in, my study is to the right. I'll just get you settled, then I'll have someone bring us some coffee."

The room he ushered her into was small, with overflowing bookshelves lining the walls, most containing religious texts. But then she spotted another bookcase which was entirely full of scientific manuals; fate was on her side as he guided her over to a couch just in front of it.

"I'll be back in a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable." He smiled, and she smiled right back.

The second he left the room, Sasha pulled out her cell phone and took three efficient pictures of the bookshelves, making sure the titles could be read clearly. Then jumping to her feet, she quickly approached the large wooden desk in the opposite corner of the room and started snapping pictures of the documents that lay on it as she flicked through them. As she worked swiftly and methodically through the desk, her ears straining for any sound of JB's return, she ignored the pounding of her heart and the bitter taste of adrenaline at the back of her throat. This was what she did, who she was, and even the bite of fear couldn't take away from the familiar exhilaration.

But then she saw something that made the fear surge up: a file of densely typed documents littered with chemical formulas and diagrams of chemical components, and then of human cells. Even with her limited scientific knowledge, she could see that this wasn't about a virus. This was about a chemical weapon of some kind.

Still listening for JB's footsteps, she photographed every page and messaged them straight to Rachel as she finally heard him approaching, dropping back onto the couch just as he re-entered the room, followed by a silent woman bearing a tray of coffee and cake.

Smiling up at JB, she felt the vibration of her cell phone in her pocket, and used the cover of his fussing with the coffee to surreptitiously check it.

Rachel's reply was as succinct as it was terrifying: _100% mortality rate_

Keeping the smile plastered on her face as she accepted the cup of coffee with one hand, with the other she sent the prearranged signal to the military personnel now gathering just outside the town.

 _GREEN LIGHT_


	14. Target

_Author's note: It's all got very serious, suddenly, hasn't it? But I think these women can handle it…_

 **Chapter 14 – Target**

Ashley had been in the compound for two days, and by keeping her eyes and ears open as instructed, she had spotted two significant things. After once spending a week in bed with flu and an Agatha Christie anthology, she couldn't help but name them in her head as _The Disappearing Men_ and _The Mystery of the Hungry Shed_.

The disappearing men were two middle aged men who she had seen enter the Church on three occasions, but each time she had followed them in – the first time for a legitimate reason, the second and third times just snooping (despite Sasha's warning) – they had vanished in the few seconds it took for her to enter the Church behind them. She had to assume there was a hidden door somewhere inside, but until now she hadn't had the opportunity to spend time looking for it. The men hadn't been at any of the communal meals, or prayer meetings, which suggested that whatever they were doing was linked to JB's more sinister activities.

The hungry shed was less of a puzzle, but something that intrigued her more than the disappearing men. A rusted metal shed with a securely padlocked door stood at the edge of her view from the window of her dormitory, not too far from JB's quarters, and she had observed that each day a delivery of food had been made to the shed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time. The person delivering the food was normally Luke, a quiet boy who followed Will around like a puppy, but the night before it had been Will himself. Ash could only deduce that there was someone in the shed, presumably being held captive for some reason, given the padlock, but for this to all go on in plain sight of others in the compound, it suggested that people were turning a blind eye rather than being unaware. So who could it be? Someone from the compound being punished? Her thoughts kept drifting back to what Lissy had said about the way women were treated when she was with the Immunes on the East Coast, and Ash couldn't help thinking that it could be a young girl in there.

So when she got the message from Kat saying _I can't be apart from you any more, I'm coming to get you_ – the agreed code for an emergency evacuation – she knew that she only had time to investigate one of the mysteries, and she chose the shed.

Tucking the knife Sasha had given her into her sleeve the way she'd been taught, she left the dormitory and headed over towards the metal shed. She'd noticed that the walls didn't completely reach the uneven ground, and as she bent next to one of the larger gaps to pretend to tie her boot, she spoke softly.

"Hello? Is there someone in there?"

There was a scuffling noise, and then a thin frightened voice emerged. "What do you want?"

"I want to help you."

"Who are you?" It was a boy's voice, the pitch raised by fear, but definitely male.

"I'm Ash, who are you?"

"Timothy."

The pieces fell into place, and Ash found herself exclaiming, "Ruth's brother!" Before kicking herself for giving too much away.

But Timothy was obviously pleased, as some of the fright went out of his voice, to be replaced with an eagerness. "Are you here to get me? Are you making the exchange?"

Back at the house, Rachel drummed her fingers impatiently on the table in the control centre, staring at her cell phone. She knew that Sasha had called in military support, and that Kat should have already got Ashley out of the compound before that happened, so one of them should have called her by now. Hell, Nina was outside of town at the rendezvous point, she could have called the second the tactical teams rolled out.

Not for the first time, she felt the impotence of having to hide, of skulking in the background while the others did the real work.

"If they hadn't put my face on the bloody ration books," She muttered under her breath, then looked up as she heard a footstep in the doorway.

"Hello Doctor Scott." Ruth's brother Will was staring at her, and the expression on his face made her stomach turn over as he continued. "You're supposed to be dead."

Fighting down nausea, she knew there was no point pretending to be someone else. Instead she decided to play for time, as her foot reached the laptop bag under the table and she began to draw it towards her.

"You're Will, aren't you? Ruth's brother?"

"Yes, ma'am." His smile was slightly twisted. "And I've come to take you to God."

The laptop bag was close enough now for her to surreptitiously reach inside, as long as she didn't bend forward too much. "What do you mean, WIll?" She tried to keep her voice steady.

"JB's going to be very angry when he sees you. He's been telling everyone for years that he killed you. So I'm going to be the one to deliver you to him." His face looked somehow triumphant. "And he can show them all that he destroyed you, once and for all."

Her fingers were on the package, the wrapped 'gift' that Mike had insisted she brought with her. She just wished her hand wasn't shaking. She took a deep breath as Will took a step forward, and then pulled the gun out of the bag in one swift movement and levelled it at Will's chest.

Outside the Church compound, Kat had barely pulled the car to a stop when Ashley came running towards her, wrenching open the passenger door and flinging herself into the vehicle.

"We need to get back to the house, now!" She shouted, "Rachel's in danger!" Kat stared at her, and Ash slammed her hand down on the dashboard. "NOW!" She yelled, and Kat obeyed, tyres screeching as she pulled away. If she'd had time to look in the rear view mirror, she would have seen the shadowy shapes of a tactical team approaching the compound.

Rachel stood up slowly, keeping the gun on Will as she circled the table, gesturing with her head for him to move away from the door. Sweat slid down her ribs, and her hand was still shaking, but he was obeying her. All she had to do was get out of the door, lock him in, and run like hell. She could do this.

And then Ruth was there, calm, capable Ruth, standing in the doorway with a look of shock.

"Will? Rachel?" She seemed to grasp the situation immediately. "Will, what have you done? Oh god." She turned to Rachel, her hand reaching out. "Please, please don't shoot him. Rachel, please."

The desperation in her voice was hard to hear, and on instinct Rachel started to lower the gun. But the second she did so, even as she started to exhale and feel something like relief, Ruth's hand was on hers, twisting her wrist, and then in seconds she found herself staring down the barrel of the gun, Ruth's perfectly steady hand pointing it at her.

"I'm sorry Rachel." The young Marine said softly. "But you are coming with us."


	15. Kill Shot

_Author's note: Sometimes in my fluffy little universe, it would be easy to forget what these women actually do for a living. But then I write something like this and get to remember just how badass they are…_

 **Chapter 15 – Kill Shot**

Sasha's face was starting to hurt as she maintained her smile for JB, feigning listening attentively as he talked about the compound. If she hadn't seen the plans, if she hadn't called the cavalry, then she would have been gently extracting information from him. As it was, she just needed to stall him. Kat would have Ashley by now, and any second Sasha knew she would hear the sounds she was waiting for.

"You see, Sam," JB said, putting his hand over hers, "Women have a very special pace in my vision of society."

And that was when she heard it, the unmistakeable sounds of heavy boots and rising panic. As JB leapt to his feet and moved towards the window, her smile widened and became genuine; with real pleasure, she slipped the revolver from her bag and levelled it at his back.

"JB?" She abandoned Sam's hesitance and gratefully reverted to being Sasha Chandler. "You might want to direct your attention this way."

He turned and gawped, clearly unable to process what he was seeing. "What…?"

"The noises you're hearing are a large number of highly trained military personnel who are very keen to kill you at just the slightest sign of resistance." She smiled sweetly, "So I'd advise you to go quietly."

Not entirely to her surprise, he slumped down onto the couch without saying another word, his face showing his struggle to understand how this could be happening. As she kept the gun on him, Sasha reached for her cell phone to call in their position, but the message displayed on her screen stopped her in her tracks. After a split second's calculation, she delivered a swift blow with the gun to JB's head, knocking him out cold.

Now focussed on one objective only, Sasha tore out of the small building and ran towards the gate of the compound. As she passed a group of black clad military figures, she shouted and gestured without stopping, "He's in there!" As she raced past them, she could have sworn one of them shouted her name, but she didn't have time to check, there wasn't enough time for anything except getting to Rachel.

Mike Slattery stared after Sasha in disbelief, but figuring she'd have her reasons - she always did - he gestured the men with him to continue into JB's quarters. The cult leader was crawling groggily towards the door when they burst in, and Mike couldn't help a smirk of pleasure at his befuddled state.

"Hey buddy, remember me?" As JB looked up at him, recognition starting to dawn, Mike took great pleasure in punching him right back into unconsciousness with a single blow. "Just as good second time around." He remarked, before turning to Danny Green and Carlton Burk, who grinned right back.

A couple of miles away, Rachel stood perfectly still as Ruth trained the pistol on her. "Ruth," She said, trying her hardest not to let her voice shake, "What are you doing?"

"Just move." Ruth gestured with the gun for Rachel to move towards the door, guiding her out into the yard, Will following behind.

"I don't understand why you're doing this." Rachel tried again, but the younger woman wasn't responding to her, and the triumphant look on Will's face was scaring her even more than Ruth's blank expression.

"Ruth?" But this time the voice was Kat's, her slim figure appearing in front of them as she emerged from the kitchen into the yard. "Baby, what are you doing?"

Ruth's face twisted, and all of a sudden she looked a lot less composed. "Kat, please. I don't want to hurt you."

"You take the scientist bitch, I'll deal with this one." Will took a step towards Kat, but Ruth held up her hand to stop him.

"No!" Her voice was slightly shrill. "Kat, please just go. You can go. This isn't about you. He just wants Rachel."

"I can't do that." Kat was edging towards Ruth, and Rachel felt sweat prickling around her hairline as the young Marine sought to put herself between them. "You don't want to hurt Rachel, Ruth, I know you don't."

"I have to!" Ruth shot a wild glance towards her brother. "It's the only way I can save them." This time she looked right at Rachel. "You have a family, you'd do anything to protect them. That's what we do, especially now!"

Rachel suddenly realised what was going on, and she could see from Kat's body language that she already knew. There was a gun tucked into the back of Kat's waistband, but she kept her hands open, her arms spread, as she approached her girlfriend.

"JB made a deal, didn't he?" Her voice was calm, understanding. "Rachel for your brothers."

Will let out a sudden burst of laughter. "JB? JB doesn't know she's here! This is my plan. I get to deliver him the bitch scientist, and she," He gestured toward Ruth, "Gets my faithless brother. Everyone's happy."

Kat was firmly between Ruth and Rachel now, and from her position behind her, Rachel could see just how close Kat was to Ruth; and therefore to both the gun in her shaking hand, and to Will as he continued to talk.

"Of course, my big sister thinks she can save me, but that's alright. The non-believers don't understand that we're already saved. You're all going to burn soon enough-" And then he made a grunting sound as an object emerged from the darkness and hit him in the side of the head, causing him to slump to the ground and revealing Ashley behind him, a shovel in her hand.

"No!" Ruth shrieked, spinning and pointing her gun at Ash. "What did you do?!"

"Ruth!" Kat shouted, trying to draw her attention back to her. "Don't do that! Look at me! Stay with me!" For the first time, there was fear in her voice. "Baby, please, look at me."

Rachel started to skirt slowly around, aiming to reach Ash, but before she could, she heard a voice quiet with cold fury coming from behind her.

"Get the fuck away from my daughter."

Sasha's hand was perfectly steady on her weapon as she aimed at Ruth's head, unlike the younger woman, who was shaking so badly that Sasha was terrified she'd fire accidentally. "There is no way out of this Ruth, other than to put that gun down." She said softly.

"You just need to let me go with Rachel and my brother. That's all you have to do!" Ruth was on the verge of hysteria now, her eyes darting like a cornered animal.

"We can't do that." Sasha said in that same quiet voice, "You know we can't." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rachel edging towards Ash, but then she saw another movement, Will rising from the ground with the discarded shovel in his hand, and as he swung it back, ready to bring it down on Ash, Sasha fired.

Years of training meant that the shot landed perfect on target, sending Will arcing backwards as the bullet penetrated his forehead and killed him instantly. Time seemed to slow down, but Sasha knew from experience that it was actually the adrenaline flooding her body and speeding her up - her movements, her thoughts, her reactions - and yet as Ruth screamed and swung the gun towards her, there was still not enough time.

And in that strange moment of calm and inevitability, Sasha's brain delivered her the very clearest picture: Tom and the kids on a bright summer day, gathered in the garden of their home, the twins in his arms as Ash and Sam messed about making faces, when all she'd wanted to do was take a family photograph… And despite everything that was happening, and the thing that she knew was about to happen, she smiled. And then she heard the shot.


	16. Over

_Author's note: And now, the end is near, and so we face the final curtain..._

 **Chapter 16 – Over**

Ruth's body fell to ground, and the moment of silence that followed the gunshot was broken by the sound of Kat's revolver hitting the earth as it dropped from the Lieutenant's fingers, right before she dropped to her knees.

Sasha drew in a breath, something that suddenly felt like the most incredible privilege, but before she could move, Ashley was flinging her arms around her. Sasha held her close, squeezing her tightly, still trying to process what had just happened.

"I thought-" She started, but Ash was already speaking.

"She was going to kill you!"

"Better me than you." Sasha told her, and Ash looked up, tears rolling down her face.

"You called me your daughter."

"Of course!" Sasha fought tears of her own, "Of course you are."

Rachel had slumped against the wall of the control centre, her face white, and Kat was frozen like a statue on the grass, her eyes fixed on the body of her girlfriend. And in that moment, when Sasha heard the dearest voice in the world to her, for a second she really thought she was hallucinating.

"What in the hell happened here?" It took a lot to shock Admiral Tom Chandler, but the scene in front of him achieved it. His eyes moved from his wife and daughter to the two bodies on the lawn, to Rachel's uncontrollably shaking form, to Kat's frozen despair. And as the yard started to fill with military personnel, he stepped over to Sasha and Ashley, still locked in each other's arms, and put his own arms around the pair of them, as if trying to shelter them completely from any further harm.

As the other two tactical teams arrived outside the house, Nina jumped nimbly down from a commandeered van and stepped straight into an incredibly familiar body.

"Kansas?" She looked up at her husband in shock.

"Can't let Tom and Mike have all the fun." He grinned down at her, "Hey there Callaghan. That is a very nice gun."

Nina glanced casually at the M16 rifle in her hands. "Well, you did tell me to keep one hand on my belly and the other on a gun!"

"Yes I did." He was about to pull her in for a kiss when a voice shouted out from inside the house.

"We got casualties here!"

Nina's eyes met Tex's in shock, and they sprinted into the building as one.

Mike Slattery had heard the shout as he climbed out of his own vehicle, which had JB trussed up like a turkey in the back, closely guarded by Burk and Green. Fuelled by a surge of fear, he ran in after Tex and Nina.

Nina had the advantage of immediately knowing who the bodies in the yard belonged to, and what their deaths meant, but all Tex could see was his daughter kneeling on the ground.

"Kat?" He fell to his knees next to her. "What happened?"

Nina crouched the other side of her and gently touched her arm. "Kat?" She was close to tears as she looked at the body of the young woman who'd worked alongside them. "Kat, who killed Ruth?"

"I did." Kat rasped, her eyes never leaving the body. "I did."

Mike didn't see a single thing except Rachel. He strode across the yard, oblivious to the bodies, the milling personnel, his friends. All he could see was his pale and shaking wife.

"Sweetheart?" He ducked slightly so he could look into her face, his heart pounding. "Are you hurt?"

Rachel threw herself into his arms and he kept his body between her and everyone else as he held her, running his hands over her and assessing for injury even as he pressed his lips to the top of her head.

"I'm so glad you're here." She managed in a shaky voice, and he held her even tighter.

"Where the hell else would I be?"

Tex and Nina were trying to coax Kat into moving away from Ruth's body, but she was unresponsive again. Then a familiar figure was shoving his way through the pockets of people filling the yard and crouching down in front of her.

"Kitkat, I'm here. It's okay. I'm here now."

Tex looked astonished as Ray Diaz almost pushed him out of the way, but Nina gave the smallest smile as Kat's eyes finally flickered away from Ruth's body.

"Ray?" She croaked, and then she burst into tears and fell forwards into his body.

"I'm here Kitkat, I've got you," He scooped her into his lap, letting her cry into his chest. "I promise, it's okay now."

Tex stood up, moving just a step away, and caught Danny Green's eye, raising his eyebrow in a silent question.

"The kid threatened to go AWOL if we didn't let him come with." Danny told him. "He's in deep shit when we get back."

Tex managed a half smile, "Doesn't look like he's gonna care."

Standing with Eric Miller against the wall by the kitchen door, Wolf Taylor reviewed the scene. From what he could work out, everyone he cared about was fine, and the bad guys were either captive or dead, so the mission was a success. He glanced at his watch and made a face.

"What?" Miller asked.

"Just wondering if this mess will get cleaned up in time for us to fly out tonight. Hope's going to shit a brick if I don't get back."

Miller's face creased in confusion. "I thought she was fine about your job?"

"Mate, it's the hormones. Pregnancy makes her crazy. Even more beautiful, but crazy. I'm trying to avoid setting her off."

Miller's mouth dropped open slightly. "Shit, man. What are you going to do?"

"Do?" Wolf looked at him in confusion. "Look after her and our kid, of course. I bloody love that woman. Her crazy is my privilege."

Tom had managed to steer the key players inside, and Sasha found her hand reaching for Rachel's as they sat side by side on the couch. Ashley was on the other side of her, cuddled under her arm, and every time she looked at her, Sasha found herself fighting tears. Mike stood behind them, his hands on Rachel's shoulders, and Kat sat in an armchair opposite, guarded by Tex, Nina and Ray - who hadn't taken his eyes off her once.

"The Army will be here in a couple of hours to take over." Tom told them. "Not sure they appreciated us taking point, but we weren't going to trust anyone else with this."

"Where are the kids?" Sasha asked, and Tom smiled slightly.

"They're with Dad and Sam - Jack too." He nodded towards Nina and Kat. "Everyone's fine."

Mike squeezed Rachel's shoulders. "Jamie's with Lissy."

"We have helos outside of town," Tom continued. "If we leave soon, we can be back home before they wake up. I figure debrief can wait until tomorrow."

Sasha finally felt the adrenaline starting to leave her body as she nodded. She needed to hold her children, all of her children, in her arms.

"Yes." Rachel agreed quietly.

"I can't." Kat's voice was still a little raspy, but she no longer looked shell-shocked. "I have to go and find Timothy. I have to explain what happened to his brother and sister." She gagged slightly on the last word. "He deserves to hear it from me."

"I'll go with you." Ray took her hand as she looked round at her father and stepmother.

"You should go home to Jack. I'll be okay."

Tex looked torn, but Nina laid a hand on Kat's shoulder.

"Come back with the rest of these guys tomorrow, okay? You need to be home too, kiddo."

Kat nodded, and her eyes suddenly met Sasha's. "I'd do it again." She said quietly, and Sasha had to squeeze her own eyes tight shut for a moment to avoid breaking down.

An hour later, as the helo rose up and away from Cross River, Sasha's gaze was drawn to the lights of the town below them. She knew that it was chaos on the ground as the Army swept through, swarming the Church compound and no doubt the hidden lab beneath it, but from up here everything looked calm.

She looked away from the window and around the small space, seeing Ash also gazing out the window, and Mike and Rachel gazing at each other. When her eyes reached Tom, they locked with his, and he squeezed her hand.

 _We did it_ , she thought, finally realising it was over. JB's plan would never be realised, the neurotoxin never released. Cross River would recover, and so would she and her team - her friends.

She looked back at Tom and smiled.

 **The End**

 _Thank you so much for reading! This story will soon get a standalone homecoming epilogue, definitely in the M rated section for happy smutty goodness, so follow me to make sure you don't miss it!_

 _If you enjoyed Step Forward, I would love a review - it really means a lot to know people are on board with this stuff!_


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